This research will examine both the neural circuitry of emotion regulation and the impact of individual differences in the experience of emotion on emotion regulatory processes. Objectives include (1) identifying the role of regions hypothesized to be a part of the circuitry underlying emotion regulation (e.g. the amygdala and regions within prefrontal codex), (2) characterizing the interaction between these regions during voluntary emotion regulation, and (3) relating individual differences in the expedence of emotion and activity within this circuitry. Event-related fMRI of neurologically intact volunteers and patients with focal frontal brain damage will be performed during the voluntary modulation of an emotional response to affective pictures. Self-report and psychophysiological data will be collected during fMRI scanning to confirm and measure the degree to which the emotion regulation manipulation is successful. Dispositional affect levels and degree of emotion differentiation (the parsing of emotional experience into discrete specific emotion terms) will be assessed using a 14-day diary protocol with handheld computers after completion of the fMRI procedure. Individual differences in awareness of emotional responses (indexed by self-report compared to psychophysiological measures) will also be assessed via a backward-masking paradigm involving subliminal presentation of affective stimuli. Analysis of the relation between emotion differentiation, emotional awareness, and ability to regulate emotion will test whether knowing exactly how one feels is associated with greater ability to modulate that feeling in a goal-appropriate manner. ? ?
