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Compassion-based emotion regulation up-regulates experienced positive affect and associated neural networks.

ABSTRACT: Emotion regulation research has primarily focused on techniques that attenuate or modulate the impact of emotional stimuli. Recent evidence suggests that this mode regulation can be problematic in the context of regulation of emotion elicited by the suffering of others, resulting in reduced emotional connectedness. Here, we investigated the effects of an alternative emotion regulation technique based on the up-regulation of positive affect via Compassion-meditation on experiential and neural affective responses to depictions of individuals in distress, and compared these with the established emotion regulation strategy of Reappraisal. Using fMRI, we scanned 15 expert practitioners of Compassion-meditation either passively viewing, or using Compassion-meditation or Reappraisal to modulate their emotional reactions to film clips depicting people in distress. Both strategies effectively, but differentially regulated experienced affect, with Compassion primarily increasing positive and Reappraisal primarily decreasing negative affect. Imaging results showed that Compassion, relative to both passive-viewing and Reappraisal increased activation in regions involved in affiliation, positive affect and reward processing including ventral striatum and medial orbitfrontal cortex. This network was shown to be active prior to stimulus presentation, suggesting that the regulatory mechanism of Compassion is the stimulus-independent endogenous generation of positive affect.

SUBMITTER: Engen HG

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4560943 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:The recurrent nature of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) necessitates a better understanding of mechanisms facilitating relapse. MDD has often been associated with abnormal emotion regulation, underpinned by aberrant interactions between the prefrontal cortex and subcortical areas. We assessed whether neural regulation abnormalities remain after remission and relate to emotion regulation problems in daily life. At the baseline measurement of a randomized controlled trial, an emotion regulation task was performed during fMRI scanning by 46 remitted recurrent (rrMDD) patients and 24 healthy controls. We assessed both fMRI peak activity and the temporal dynamics of the neural response during passive attendance and explicit regulation of positive and negative emotions. Furthermore, we assessed regulation strategy use in daily life using questionnaires, and attentional biases using a modified attentional dot-probe task. RrMDD patients showed lower activation and different temporal dynamics in occipital, parietal, and prefrontal brain regions during passive attendance of emotional material compared to healthy controls. During explicit downregulation of negative emotions, no group differences were found. However, during explicit upregulation of positive emotions, rrMDD patients showed a different neural response over time in the insula. Behaviourally, rrMDD patients were characterized by dysfunctional regulation strategies in daily life. Within rrMDD patients, rumination was associated with activation within a limbic- prefrontal network. After remission, immediate emotional processing seems unaffected, but regulatory abnormalities remain, especially uninstructed and in daily life. Abnormal insula activation during positive upregulation suggests decreased monitoring of positive emotions. The relation between inadequate rumination and brain activity during emotion regulation suggests that regulation of both positive and negative affect is important in understanding neurocognitive underpinnings of resilience.

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Compassion-based emotion regulation up-regulates experienced positive affect and associated neural networks.

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