Martins Bruna, Ponzio Allison, Velasco Ricardo, Kaplan Jonas, Mather Mara
Department of Psychology and Department of Gerontology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0191, USA
Department of Psychology and Department of Gerontology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0191, USA.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2015 Jun;10(6):840-7. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsu129. Epub 2014 Nov 6.
Different emotion regulation strategies are distinctly represented in the brains of younger adults. Decreasing a reaction to a negative situation by reinterpreting it (reappraisal) relies on cognitive control regions in the prefrontal cortex, while distracting away from a stressor involves more posterior medial structures. In this study, we used Multi-Voxel pattern analyses (MVPA) to examine whether reappraisal and distraction strategies have distinct representations in the older adult brain, or whether emotion regulation strategies become more dedifferentiated in later life. MVPA better differentiated the two emotion regulation strategies for younger adults than for older adults, and revealed the greatest age-related differences in differentiation in the posterior medial cortex (PMC). Univariate analyses revealed equal PMC recruitment across strategies for older adults, but greater activity during distraction than reappraisal for younger adults. The PMC is central to self-focused processing, and thus our findings are consistent with the possibility that focusing on the self may be a default mechanism across emotion regulation strategies for older people.
不同的情绪调节策略在年轻人的大脑中有明显的表现。通过重新解读负面情况（重新评估）来减少对负面情况的反应依赖于前额叶皮质中的认知控制区域，而从压力源中分散注意力则涉及更多的后内侧结构。在本研究中，我们使用多体素模式分析（MVPA）来检验重新评估和分散注意力策略在老年人脑中是否有不同的表现，或者情绪调节策略在晚年是否变得更加去分化。与老年人相比，MVPA能更好地区分年轻人的两种情绪调节策略，并揭示了后内侧皮质（PMC）中与年龄相关的最大分化差异。单变量分析显示，老年人在不同策略下的PMC激活程度相同，但年轻人在分散注意力时的活动比重新评估时更活跃。PMC是自我聚焦加工的核心，因此我们的研究结果与以下可能性一致，即关注自我可能是老年人情绪调节策略中的一种默认机制。
