Ertl et al., 2013. Emotion regulation by cognitive reappraisal - The role of frontal theta oscillations
We want (and need) to regulate our emotions. Sometimes consciously and sometimes unconsciously. Probably the most studied form of emotion regulation in the lab is cognitive reappraisal, which can be intentionally reinterpreting a situation in a more positive light (assuming the goal is to down-regulate negative emotions).
Like all other cognitive processes, we want to understand the neural correlates of the process so we can (1) better understand and manipulate the cognitive act, and (2) have an objective measure of the cognitive task. I only bring this up because the latter point seems especially relevant for emotion regulation. The issue of demand characteristics is tough to avoid in the situation of emotion regulation, since asking participants to “decrease” their emotional response and then asking them “what was your emotional reponse?” seems a bit obvious. Previous neural markers like the Late Positive Potential (LPP) have been used for indexing emotional processing, and while that is used for cognitive reappraisal research as a measure of success (i.e., how much does emotion regulation modify the LPP), but here is possibly one related to the act of cognitive reappraisal specifically. Importantly, that is not their goal, but rather a nice side effect I think. Their goal seems to be to draw connections to animal models and further understanding about the neural processes behing emotion regulation (with a focus here on PFC and amygdala).
Their general setup is that (1) fMRI experiments of cognitive reappraisal show that amygdala is decreased during emotion regulation, and likey mediated by PFC, and (2) animal models suggests theta oscillations are indicative of PFC-amygdala connectivity. So let’s use theta oscillations (as measured in humaan scalp EEG) to quantify PFC-amygdala “discussion” during cognitive reappraisal. The main takeaway here is that frontal theta oscillations are correlated with (subjective) cognitive reappraisal (downregulation) success. There are increases in theta (here, 4 Hz) power during both up- and down-regulation, but the correlation with subjective ratings only occurs with down-regulation.
A few notes:
- They only setup hypotheses (and present results) for a difference between the decrease/maintain conditions, although there was an increase condition…? Well one line in the last paragraph of intro suggests they expected to see frontal theta during either emotion regulation (increase or decrease).
- I really like the task because it seems like all other reappraisal studies tell them to increase/decrease/view before the image is present, presumably to get measure the Late Positive Potential at the time of stim onset (LPP is an ERP purported to measure emotional response, and is correlated with subjective regulation success).
- They collect a rating of each image before and after regulation instructions, and take the difference as a measure of regulation success (or failure). I’m not sure when they do this… It doesn’t occur in a single trial, so I guess they just rated all the images before the experiment…? But that also isn’t in the text – either I missed it or it’s an error of exclusion.