An ERP Analysis of Cognition After Emotion Regulation

Harvard University, Cambridge MA

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Abstract

[unreadable] DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Although 85% of mental illnesses (including major depressive disorder (MDD)) are thought to involve dysfunction in emotion regulation (ER) processes, little empirical evidence exists regarding the exact nature of the abnormalities present in these populations. Recent research has linked certain ER strategies with memory impairments. Researchers suggest that "cognitive shortcuts" such as biases and schemas may be used to compensate for those impairments. Because biased cognitive processes are important in the development, maintenance, and exacerbation of depressed mood, it is conceivable that abnormalities in ER may contribute to abnormalities in MDD. In the proposed studies event-related brain potentials will be employed to probe the relationship between ER strategies and information processing. It is predicted that enhancing one's negative emotion will decrease early attention-oriented and increase later elaborative brain activity to negative stimuli, relative to maintaining or suppressing that emotion and relative to maintaining a neutral emotion. Secondly, individuals with MDD are hypothesized to show enhanced brain activity to negative stimuli after enhancing a negative emotion relative to healthy controls. [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable]