Emotion regulation through bifocal processing of fear inducing and disgust inducing stimuli
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BMC Neuroscience Open Access
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Emotion regulation through bifocal processing of fear inducing and disgust inducing stimuli Dina Wittfoth1* , Antonia Pfeiffer1, Michael Bohne2, Heinrich Lanfermann1 and Matthias Wittfoth1
Abstract Background: We present first-time evidence for the immediate neural and behavioral effects of bifocal emotional processing via visualized tapping for two different types of negative emotions (fear and disgust) in a sample of healthy participants. Results: Independent of stimulus type, neural activation in the amygdala is increased during regulation, while activation in the ventral anterior cingulate cortex is decreased. Behavioral responses, as well as lateral and medial occipital regions and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex show differential regulatory effects with respect to stimulus type. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that emotion regulation through bifocal processing has a neural and behavioral signature that is distinct from previously investigated emotion regulation strategies. They support theoretical models of facilitated access to and processing of emotions during bifocal processing and suggest differential neural and behavioral effects for various types of negative emotions. Keywords: Emotion, Emotion regulation, Bifocal processing, Fear, Disgust, Functional magnetic resonance imaging Background The ability to regulate emotions and other internal states is crucial for adaptive emotional functioning, and closely linked to subjective well-being [1–3]. Emotion regulation aims at influencing the type, intensity and duration of emotions using a variety of strategies [4]. The most common classifications found in the existing literature differentiate between explicit emotion regulatory strategies and implicit emotion regulatory strategies [4–6]. Other definitions differentiate between antecedent-focused emotion regulation and response-focused emotion regulation or between intrinsic (i.e. self-generated) emotion regulation and extrinsic (i.e. prompted by the environment) emotion regulation [4, 5, 7, 8]. *Correspondence: Wittfoth.Dina@mh‑hannover.de 1 Institut für Diagnostische und Interventionelle Neuroradiologie, Medizinische Hochschule Hannover, Hannover, Germany Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
Explicit emotion regulation, also called voluntary emotion regulation involves e.g. voluntary attentional control through selective attention or attentional deployment, cognitive change through reappraisal or detachment, behavioral suppression (keeping a ‘poker face’) or situation selection and modification [4, 5, 9, 10]. These strategies require conscious effort and monitoring, and usually involve some level of awareness and insight. Implicit emotion regulation, sometimes also termed automatic emotion regulation is non-intentional, but has the goal of altering several or all aspects of an emotional response [7, 11–13]. Implicit emotion regulation is not conscious and does not involve deliberate control or monitoring. It is thoug
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