Dolcos Sanda, Hu Yifan, Williams Christian, Bogdan Paul C, Hohl Kelly, Berenbaum Howard, Dolcos Florin
Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, United States.
Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, United States.
Front Psychol. 2021 Mar 9;12:585536. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.585536. eCollection 2021.
Available evidence highlights the importance of emotion regulation (ER) in psychological well-being. However, translation of the beneficial effects of ER from laboratory to real-life remains scarce. Here, we present proof-of-principle evidence from a novel cognitive-emotional training intervention targeting the development of ER skills aimed at increasing resilience against emotional distress. This pilot intervention involved training military veterans over 5-8 weeks in applying two effective ER strategies [Focused Attention (FA) and Cognitive Reappraisal (CR)] to scenarios presenting emotional conflicts (constructed with both and cues). Training was preceded and followed by neuropsychological, personality, and clinical assessments, and resting-state functional MRI data were also collected from a subsample of the participants. Results show enhanced executive function and psychological well-being following training, reflected in increased working memory (WM), post-traumatic growth (PTG), and general self-efficacy (GSE). Brain imaging results showed evidence of diminished bottom-up influences from emotional and perceptual brain regions, along with evidence of normalized functional connectivity in the large-scale functional networks following training. The latter was reflected in increased connectivity among cognitive and emotion control regions and across regions of self-referential and control networks. Overall, our results provide proof-of-concept evidence that resilience and well-being can be learned through ER training, and that training-related improvements manifested in both behavioral change and neuroplasticity can translate into real-life benefits.
现有证据凸显了情绪调节（ER）在心理健康中的重要性。然而，将ER的有益效果从实验室转化到现实生活中的研究仍然匮乏。在此，我们展示了一项新颖的认知-情绪训练干预的原理验证证据，该干预旨在培养ER技能，以增强对情绪困扰的恢复力。这项试点干预包括在5至8周内对退伍军人进行训练，让他们将两种有效的ER策略[集中注意力（FA）和认知重评（CR）]应用于呈现情绪冲突的场景（由 和 线索构建）。在训练前后进行了神经心理学、人格和临床评估，并且还从部分参与者中收集了静息态功能磁共振成像数据。结果显示，训练后执行功能和心理健康得到增强，表现为工作记忆（WM）、创伤后成长（PTG）和一般自我效能感（GSE）增加。脑成像结果显示，来自情绪和感知脑区的自下而上的影响减弱，同时训练后大规模功能网络中的功能连接正常化。后者表现为认知和情绪控制区域之间以及自我参照和控制网络区域之间的连接增加。总体而言，我们的结果提供了概念验证证据，即恢复力和幸福感可以通过ER训练习得，并且训练相关的改善在行为改变和神经可塑性方面的表现可以转化为现实生活中的益处。
