Steinfurth Elisa C K, Wendt Julia, Geisler Fay, Hamm Alfons O, Thayer Julian F, Koenig Julian
Department of Psychology, University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.
Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, United States.
Front Neurosci. 2018 Nov 5;12:794. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2018.00794. eCollection 2018.
Resting state vagally mediated heart rate variability (vmHRV) is related to difficulties in emotion regulation (ER). The prefrontal cortex (PFC) provides inhibitory control over the amygdala during ER. Previous studies linked vmHRV with activity in the ventromedial PFC (vmPFC) during ER. To date no study examined the relation between vmHRV and brain activity during ER. vmHRV was measured during a 7 min baseline at T1 2-5 days preceding T2. At T2 = 24 participants (50% female, = 24.6 years) viewed neutral or emotional pictures of pleasant or unpleasant valence and were instructed to intensify or to reduce their present emotion using two ER strategies ( and ) or to passively view the picture. Participants rated the valence of their emotional state from pleasant to unpleasant after ER. Whole-brain fMRI data were collected using a 1.5-T-scanner. We observed an association between resting state vmHRV and brain activation in the PFC and the amygdala during ER of unpleasant emotions. Groups based on vmHRV showed significant differences in the modulation of amygdala activity as a function of ER strategy. In participants with vmHRV amygdala activity was modulated only when using and for vmHRV participants only when using . Similar, dorsomedial PFC activity in vmHRV participants was increased when using and in vmHRV participants when using to regulate unpleasant emotions. These results suggest that individuals with vmHRV might have difficulties in recruiting prefrontal brain areas necessary for the modulation of amygdala activity during explicit ER.
静息状态下由迷走神经介导的心率变异性（vmHRV）与情绪调节（ER）困难有关。前额叶皮层（PFC）在情绪调节过程中对杏仁核提供抑制性控制。先前的研究将vmHRV与情绪调节过程中腹内侧前额叶皮层（vmPFC）的活动联系起来。迄今为止，尚无研究考察情绪调节过程中vmHRV与大脑活动之间的关系。在T2前2 - 5天的T1阶段，在7分钟的基线期测量vmHRV。在T2阶段，24名参与者（50%为女性，平均年龄 = 24.6岁）观看了具有愉悦或不愉悦效价的中性或情绪化图片，并被要求使用两种情绪调节策略（策略1和策略2）增强或减弱他们当前的情绪，或者被动观看图片。情绪调节后，参与者对其情绪状态的效价从愉悦到不愉悦进行评分。使用1.5-T扫描仪收集全脑功能磁共振成像数据。我们观察到，在对不愉悦情绪进行情绪调节期间，静息状态下的vmHRV与前额叶皮层和杏仁核的大脑激活之间存在关联。基于vmHRV分组的结果显示，杏仁核活动随情绪调节策略的调制存在显著差异。在vmHRV较高的参与者中，杏仁核活动仅在使用策略1时受到调制，而在vmHRV较低的参与者中，仅在使用策略2时受到调制。类似地，vmHRV较高的参与者在使用策略1调节不愉悦情绪时背内侧前额叶皮层活动增加，而vmHRV较低的参与者在使用策略2时背内侧前额叶皮层活动增加。这些结果表明，vmHRV较低的个体在明确的情绪调节过程中，可能难以调动调节杏仁核活动所需的前额叶脑区。
