Using joint experience-sampling and fMRI methods to understand how the brain supports differentiated emotional experiences

Nook, Erik Christopher, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

This award was provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) program. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. Under the sponsorship of Dr. Dylan Gee at Yale University, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist in examining the neural processes that support differentiated emotional experiences. Although affective and clinical scientists have shown that the ability to specifically identify one’s emotions (a skill called emotion differentiation) is widely associated with mental health, there are two key unanswered questions that that stymie basic understanding of this phenomenon. First, what neural mechanisms support differentiated emotional experiences, and second, what psychobiological mechanisms explain why emotion differentiation is associated with better well-being? The current project aims to address both of these questions using cutting-edge neuroimaging and ecological momentary assessment (EMA) methods. Overall, this study aims to clarify the neural processes that support differentiated emotional experiences and connect this neural measure to effective emotion regulation. As such, it aims to advance both basic understanding of human emotion and the multilevel mechanisms that support psychological well-being. The current project uses a joint functional magnetic resonance imaging – ecological momentary assessment (fMRI-EMA) design to investigate the neural bases of emotion differentiation. Adult participants complete an fMRI task in which they view and regulate their responses to neutral, sadness-inducing, and fear-inducing images before 14 days of EMA measures. Four times each day, participants report on their momentary experiences of negative emotions, the strategies they use to regulate their emotions, and how successfully those regulation attempts reduce negative affect. Emotion differentiation scores are computed from their EMA reports of emotional experiences, and a novel measure of neural emotion differentiation is computed from fMRI data using representational similarity analyses. Aim 1 tests whether the EMA measure of emotion differentiation tracks neural dissimilarity when participants view sad vs. fear stimuli. Aim 2 tests whether greater neural dissimilarity in emotion representation explains the relationship between the EMA measure of emotion differentiation and emotion regulation efficacy. Together, these aims address open questions about (i) how the brain supports differentiated emotional experiences and (ii) the neurobiological pathways that connect high emotion differentiation with better emotion regulation (a key component of mental health). Together, this study aims to develop research methods and basic insights about emotion differentiation that can be translated in future research to improve psychological well-being. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.