Affective style, psychopathology, and resilience: Brain mechanisms and plasticity

“Asymmetries in frontal brain electrical activity are thought to reflect the processing (Davidson, 1998, 2000) and regulation of emotion (Fox, 1994).”

“An inverse relationship between frontal deficits and elevated amygdala response in mood disorders has been reported previously (Davidson 2000; Siegle et al. 2002).”

“Davidson, R. J. (2000). Affective style, psychopathology, and resilience: brain mechanisms and plasticity. Am Psychol, 55(11), 1196-1214. Davidson, R. J. (2002). Anxiety and affective style: role of prefrontal cortex and amygdala. Biol Psychiatry, 51(1), 68-80. Davidson, R. J., Pizzagalli, D., Nitschke, J. B., & Putna…”

“For example, I have argued (e.g., Davidson, 2000) that there are regulatory processes in emotion that occur automatically and that modulate the onset and recovery function of emotion.”

“Regardless of their adaptive function, in some cases, due to the failure of proper responding to one’s emotions, particular patterns of emotions can predispose a person to mental health problems (Davidson, 2000).”

“For example, studies have found that parents with depression and their children evidence similar patterns of electroencephalogram (EEG) asymmetry, including greater right versus left side hemispheric activation that has been associated with processing negative emotion (Davidson, 2000).”

“, 2000; Masten, 2001; Masten & Reed, 2002; Nelson, 1999), and preliminary proposals concerning the empirical examination of the biological foundations of resilience have recently been made (Charney, 2004; Cicchetti, 2003; Curtis & Cicchetti, 2003; Davidson, 2000).”

“…for anxiety disorders is associated with changes in recruitment of brain regions that subserve affective and self-regulation including the prefrontal cortices (in particular DLPFC and medial and lateral OFC), the anterior cingulate, and the insular cortices (Davidson, 2000; Ochsner & Gross, 2008).”

“Conversely, greater relative alpha activity on the right side has been observed to be an indicator of negative affect and linked with the avoidance motivation (Davidson et al., 1990; Davidson, 2000, 2004; Harmon-Jones et al., 2010).”

“, 1997b), emotional self-regulation (Davidson, 2000), emotion decision making (Damasio, 1996), and in executive top-down cognitive regulation of emotion related limbic and paralimbic brain regions (Ochsner et al.”

“Tomarken, Davidson, Wheeler, & Doss (1992) found adequate internal consistency, reliability, and test-retest stability for brain electrical activity measures of prefrontal activation asymmetry in a large number of participants, confirming its utility for assessing individual differences.”

“…part by exaggerated activation to threatening facial expressions in the amygdala and/or insula, which are key limbic/ paralimbic structures involved in emotion generation and processing (Adolphs et al., 1995; Craig, 2009; Critchley, 2009; Davidson, 2000; Davis and Whalen, 2001; Jones et al., 2010).”

“Consistent with the regulatory function of Posner’s anterior attention system, Davidson (2000) and others have proposed that the PFC plays a central role in affective responding by modulating or regulating the time course of emotional reactions.”

“Experiencing each of those emotions is also involved in the activation of different brain regions.(14) For the past several years, researchers have examined the contributions of health assets, especially psychological ones, to good health, while they have controlled for established risk factors.”

“The observed stability may therefore be partly attributed to ‘personal dispositions’ such as affective styles (Davidson, 2000) or personality traits (Clark, 2000; Gray & Watson, 2001).”

“In addition, there is evidence that positive affect might be specifically related to left frontal lobe activity (Davidson, 2000 ).”

“An organizing principle in contemporary psychology is that human behavior reflects the pursuit of goals (and the avoidance of punishments, e.g., Carver & Scheier, 1998; Davidson, 2000; Elliot, 2008; Higgins, 1997; Morsella, Bargh, & Gollwitzer, 2009; Shah & Gardner, 2008).”

“The majority of EEG studies in the field of emotion have involved the quantification of spectral power changes within the alpha frequency band (see Davidson, 2000, for a review).”

“These findings are in agreement with the idea that the connectivity between the left PFC and amygdala plays a central role in the downregulation of negative affect [66] and with the proposed role of asymmetrical activation of the prefrontal cortex in stress adaptation via biased motivational processing.”

“’’ Surprise as one of the ‘‘basic emotions" that can be acoustically and situationally ambiguous [Davidson, 2000; Ekman and Friesen, 1976] in particular, enhances activation in the right IFG as evidenced in our data.”

“In correspondence to the neural correlates of meditation that have been associated with reduced levels of anxiety and reactivity to acute pain and improved immune response, Davidson and others [83] have suggested that meditation helps to reset the frontal systems that regulate emotional responses and sense of self.”

“Together with prior PET findings of an involvement of right PFC regions in aversive conditioning[14,16,22,35] , these findings add to a substantial literature suggesting that the left and right PFC may be differentially involved in affect, with the left PFC being relatively more involved in positive, approach-related…”

“and Davidson, R. J. (2012) Conscientiousness predicts greater recovery from negative emotion.”

“This task has been shown to increase DLPFC activity in healthy populations (Lazeron, Rombouts, de Sonneville, Barkhof and Scheltens, 2003).”

“Moreover, they underscore the importance of individual differences in the neural response to affectively salient stimuli (Davidson, 2000).”

“campus, a region associated with contextual and declarative memory that has reciprocal connections to the amygdala.(11,61)”

“These frontal brain processes are presumed to underlie the dysregulation of emotion, particularly fear and have strong links to mood and anxiety disorders (Davidson, 2000).”

“A study performed in patients with MDD (Segrave et al., 2014) found that participants receiving active tDCS + CCT over the left DLPFC improved accuracy on a nontrained emotional WM task at three weeks follow-up which also correlated with improved depressive symptoms.”

“…is, animal and human studies suggest that the right hemisphere initiates neuroendocrine and behavioural fight-orflight responses, while the left hemisphere regulates them (Baeken et al., 2014; Davidson, 2000; Lueken et al., 2009; Sullivan & Gratton, 2002; Sullivan, 2004; Wittling & Pfluger, 1990).”

“Other researchers have emphasized that emotions are generated, controlled, and regulated within different brain regions and speculate that different brain regions might be up- or down-regulated during sleep (Davidson, 2000; Kirov et al., 2012; Leuchter, Cook, Witte, Morgan, & Abrams, 2002; Leuchter et al., 2012; Linqu…”

“, angry, fearful facial expressions [5]); fear-based physiological responses (autonomic changes) in anticipation of [6,7], or during [8], anxiety-evoking situations; and negative predictions about social events [9].”

“Specifically, findings suggest that the left PFC is an important brain area in a widespread circuit that mediates appetitive approach, while the right PFC appears to form a major component of a neural circuit that instantiates defensive withdrawal [57, 58].”

“…al., 2010) and abnormalities in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (Fales et al., 2008; Li et al., 2010), including a decoupling between its left counterpart and the amygdala (Davidson, 2000; Drevets, 2001) and in the anterior cingulate cortex (Mitterschiffthaler et al., 2008; Eugène et al., 2010).”

“Positive affect is one of the important components of psychological resilience (Davidson, 2000, 2003).”

“These processes depend on a variety of dorsal prefrontal and temporo-parietal cortical regions, which may be critical for modulating emotional processing in subcortical structures, including the amygdala ( Davidson, 1998, 2000; Davidson, Putnam, & Larson, 2000; Ochsner & Feldman Barrett, 2001).”

“…frontal EEG N IH -PA Author M anuscript N IH -PA Author M anuscript activation has been consistently noted in depressed adults (see Davidson, 1996 and Davidson, 2000 for reviews) and infants of depressed mothers as early as birth (Diego et al., 2004, Field et al., 2004 and Jones et al., 1998).”

“There is also considerable individual variation in the extent to which cues associated with aversive stimuli acquire control over behavior [12], and this trait may contribute to vulnerability to anxiety disorders [13,14].”

“Affective style is conceptualized as a key individual difference contributing to the development and mainte- nance of depression (Davidson 2000), with characteristics such as the experience of positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) and the flexibility of affective response to challenging…”

“regulation and subsequently altering stress regulatory systems (Caldji et al., 1998; Davidson, 2000).”

“In fact, Davidson (2000) has defined resilience as the ‘‘maintenance of high levels of positive affect and well-being in the face of significant adversity’’ (p.”

“to achieve a specific outcome to interact with the cognitive processes that are necessary to realize that outcome and may ultimately provide critical information about pathological conditions that involve altered motivation–cognition interactions including depression, schizophrenia, ADHD, and anxiety (Barkley, 1997; B…”

“A novel neurobiological paradigm views anxiety and depression in the context of the amygdala-prefrontal circuit, with amygdala hyperactivity coinciding with prefrontal hypoactivity(89) and both coinciding with imbalances in dopamine.(90) Aripiprazole, through its dopamine partial agonism, may promote equilibrium in th…”

“El hemisferio derecho se ha asociado con el manejo de experiencias negativas y de privacio´n, y el izquierdo con las positivas y de logro 70 .”

“Just as psychobiological processes may contribute to maladaptation, so, too, may they underlie the better-than-expected processes and outcomes that typify resilience (Curtis & Cicchetti, 2003; Davidson, 2000).”

“Davidson (2000) emphasized the importance of the recovery function after negative events for vulnerability to anxiety and mood disorders.”

“Finally, there is a strong correlation between self-reported pleasure and pain and physiological measures (e.g., Davidson, 2000 ).”

“In support of it, clinically depressed adults were found to show greater right-sided anterior activation (Henriques and Davidson 1990), while enhanced adaptive response to stressful events and faster recovery from provocation were noted in individuals with greater left-sided anterior activation ( Davidson 2000; Davids…”

“One fundamental assumption underlying the process of resilience is that resilient functioning is characterized by quicker return to equilibrium (Curtis & Cicchetti, 2003; Davidson, 2000).”

“In turn, they involve the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the orbitofrontal cortex, amygdala, insula, hippocampus, and cingulate cortex (Davidson, 2000; Ertl et al., 2013; Ochsner & Gross, 2005; Phillips et al., 2008; Suveg, Southam-Gerow, Goodman, & Kendall, 2007).”

“2010), key limbic/ paralimbic emotion generation and processing regions (Adolphs et al. 1995; Davidson, 2000; Davis & Whalen, 2001; Craig, 2009; Critchley, 2009; Jones et al. 2010).”

“Some have sought to tackle unexplained variance by shifting from the predominant emphasis on vulnerability and risk, to consider resilience and protection (Davidson, 2000; Luthar & Cicchetti, 2000).”

“Anterior regions of the prefrontal cortex (orbitofrontal and ventro-medial) are implicated in the ability to tonically inhibit subcortically generated sympatho-excitatory and attentional responses to motivationally relevant stimuli (Davidson, 2000 ; Davidson, Jackson, & Kalin, 2000 ; Thayer & Brosschot, 2005 ).”

“Finally, the third aspect of affective style discussed by Davidson is the threshold for reactivity, which refers to the intensity of the eliciting stimulus that is required for an affective response to occur (Davidson, 2000b).”

“As per the NCC approach, EEG analysis connects wellbeing to patterns of neural activity, such as greater left-sided hemispheric activation (Davidson 2000).”

“…of positive emotions while limiting the impact of negative emotions and plays an essential role in allowing humans to adapt to their surroundings, while the dysregulation of emotion has been viewed as a key component in many forms of psychopathology (Davidson, 2000; Machado and Bachevalier, 2003).”

“According to asymmetry of the PFC structurally and functionally, the PFC play a vital role in generating emotions (Davidson, 2000).”

“To whom correspondence should be addressed at Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, 3720 Walnut St. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104; e-mail: tchaplin@psych.upenn.edu. lated to forms of psychopathology, including depression (Davidson, 2000; Izard, 1972).”

“…and its appearance early in life is predictive of socioemotional and stress-related problems (see Coan & Allen, 2004; Fox et al., 1995; Fox et al., 1996; Fox et al., 2001), some have argued that this metric indexes stress vulnerability (Coan & Allen, 2004; Davidson, 1993, 2000; Fox, 1991, 1994).”

“A leading theory is that this network is involved in emotional processing (Davidson 2000), and a substantial body of research supports this claim (e.g., Lane et al. 1997, 1998).”