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

“Subcortical brain regions related to mood, threat assessment (Davidson 2000), and reward-seeking (e.g., nucleus accumbens and ventral striatum; Gottfried 2011) also continue to develop and increase in reactivity.”

“Recovery refers to how quickly and effectively people bounce back or regain equilibrium following challenge and adversity (Curtis & Cicchetti, 2003; Davidson, 2000).”

“Specifically, it may reflect individual differences in the activity of the limbic and paralimbic brain regions in response to emotional stimuli (Davidson, 2000), an area well known to be engaged in all different kinds of emotional processing.”

“…relationships are consistent with the claim that visual attention plays a critical role in regulating state (Rothbart et al., 1992) and with evidence indicating that the right hemisphere is involved in the regulation of negative emotion (Davidson, 2000; Schore, 1994; Wismer-Fries & Pollak, 2007).”

“Moreover, the pattern of resting frontal EEG asymmetry may reflect a predisposition (i.e., a trait marker) to experience and express positive or negative emotions in response to novelty or mild stress, individual differences in approach-avoidance tendencies, and affective style (Davidson, 2000).”

“…2008; Lyubomirsky, Sheldon, & Schkade, 2005; Seligman, 2002; Watson, 1988; Watson, Clark, & Carey, 1988; Watson & Tellegen, 1985), as well as psychological resilience (Davidson, 2000; Ong, Bergeman, Bisconty, & Wallace, 2006; Salovey, Rothman, Detweiler, & Steward, 2000; Wichers et al., 2006).”

“These associations are pertinent to the present research because emotion regulation problems are strongly related to psychopathology (Davidson, 2000).”

“These distinct patterns of frontal EEG asymmetry during the processing of positive and negative emotions have been noted in studies of adults, children, and infants across different sensory modalities (see Davidson, 2000; Fox, 1991, 1994 for a review).”

“For instance, the extreme fear response in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is likely adaptive in the face of life-threatening danger but maladaptive when it extends beyond it; likewise, the duration, rather than mere presence, of hopelessness and apathy symptoms is central to the diagnosis of depression [28].”

“Davidson defines resilience as “the maintenance of high levels of positive affect and well-being in the face of significant adversity” (Davidson, 2000, p. 1198).”

“Emotional resilience is defined as “the ability to generate positive emotion and recover quickly from negative emotional experiences” (Davidson, 2000; Fredrickson et al., 2008).”

“…regulation is an essential component of mental health and that emotion dysregulation will make a person more vulnerable to various forms of psychopathology and mental disorders (e.g., Cicchetti, Ackerman, & Izard, 1995; Davidson, 2000; Gross, 1998; Gross & Munoz, 1995; Kring & Bachorowski, 1999).”

“Specifically, positive emotion is associated with greater relative left-sided frontal activation, as compared to rightsided (Davidson, 2000; Davidson et al., 2000a, 2003), whereas negative emotion is accompanied by greater relative right-sided frontal activation, as compared to left-sided (Davidson et al.”

“Davidson (1998a, 2000a) has identified several issues, such as affective chronometry, resilience and threshold for reactivity, which may be important in examining affective responses during exercise.”

“However, cognitive scientists are growing increasingly aware of the importance of affective factors in human cognition (see, for instance, Davidson, 2000).”

“…stage, as witnessed through the number of different techniques used to measure them, such as the collection of event-related brain potentials (ERPs, Davidson, 2000; Tiffany and Cacioppo, 1999), monitoring of the autonomic nervous system (Cacioppo et al., 1993; Sapolski, 1999) and observation of…”

“…Cote, Santesso, & Milner, 2003; Tomarken, Davidson, Wheeler, & Kinney, 1992) and its appearance early in life is predictive of personality aspects (Fox et al., 2001), some have argued that this metric represents a “trait- like” marker of dispositional affective style (Davidson, 1993, 2000).”

“Subsequently, most theorists have dealt with two of them only (e.g., Carver & White, 1994; Davidson, 2000; Davidson & Irwin, 1999; Davidson, Jackson, & Kalin, 2000; Depue & Collins, 1999; Depue, Luciana, Arbisi, Collins, & Leon, 1994; Watson & Tellegen, 1999).”

“The anatomically and functionally various area of PFC are well-known for its role in emotion formation (Davidson, 2000).”

“Existing literature supports expressively that the network of coaches, mentors and professionals supports the entrepreneurs at time of crisis (Davidson, 2000).”

“Infant negative affect was coded during the (1) teaching task 1, (2) teaching task 2, and (3) the still face.”

“…style in healthy adults and children, some clinically depressed and anxious populations even when their symptoms are in remission (for reviews see Davidson 1993, 2000; Davidson et al 2003; Coan and Allen 2004), and adults with schizophrenia whose negative symptoms are reduced (Jetha et al in…”

“Neuroimaging studies have indicated that such inconsistent findings may emerge from the failure to look at both BIS and BAS systems as on a continuum and relative deactivation of BIS or activation of BAS might be equally involved in aggressive behavior ( Beauchaine 2001; Fowles 1998).”

“With regards to the literature [145] on hemispheric laterality in emotional regulation and dysregulation, we also compared the effects of bright light treatment on hemispheric laterality in patients versus controls and in baseline versus postlight conditions.”

“…left frontal alpha asymmetry, a biomarker of approach, has been related to positive affect and exploratory behaviors, but in some cases, difficulty controlling approach behaviors and greater externalizing problems (Davidson, 1994, 1998; Davidson, 2004; Davidson and Fox, 1989; Smith and Bell, 2010).”

“The concept of learning is tightly connected to resilience (Davidson, 2000).”

“Research has also shown that political conservatives experience disgust more readily than political liberals (Inbar, Pizarro, & Bloom, 2009), and a prevention focus has been associated with emotional reactions that involve an avoidance orientation (Davidson, 2000; Higgins, 1997), which have been linked, in turn, to br…”

“…of frontal asymmetry reflect relatively greater alpha power in the right hemisphere, indicating greater activity in the left hemisphere, whereas negative values represent relatively greater alpha power in the left hemisphere, indicating greater activity in the right hemisphere (Davidson, 1992).”

“…studies reported involvement of the lateral inferior (Aron et al., 2004; Ochsner et al., 2004; Phan et al., 2005; Johnstone et al., 2007) and superior (Davidson, 2000; Ochsner et al., 2002; Phan et al., 2005; Shackman et al., 2009) frontal cortex during inhibition and cognitive emotion regulation.”

“…factors in this population could inform interventions by building upon and promoting resilience in the adolescent children of depressed mothers. and well-being in the face of significant adversity,'' has important implications for adolescents at risk for depression (Davidson 2000, p. 1198).”

“…responses that can impair cognitive and psychosocial functioning, and contribute to maladaptive functioning in traumatized children who may not present with full-blown PTSD symptoms (Burns, Jackson, & Harding, 2010; Davidson, 2000; Heim & Nemeroff, 2001; Yehuda, Halligan, & Grossman, 2001).”

“and to maintain well-being in the context of adversity (Davidson 2000).”

“Emotional resilience refers to an individual’s ability to generate positive emotions and recover quickly from negative emotional experiences (Davidson, 2000).”

“Composite reliability estimates were .93, .94, and .97 for both.”

“Emotional responding congruent with a resilient profile is often conceptualized as the ability or propensity to recover from negative emotional provocation with a faster return to baseline, and to prolong positive emotional responses within a healthy range (Davidson, 2000; Thompson, 1994).”

“…wshelton@mtu.edu Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Brain and Cognition journal homepage: www.elsevier .com/ locate /b&c hemisphere activation and passive states lead to greater right hemisphere activation (Davidson, 2000; Gray, 2001; Harmon-Jones & Allen, 1998; Sutton & Davidson, 1997).”

“In particular, ALS patients, relative to controls, displayed reduced fractional anisotropy, a measure of white matter micro-integrity, within the neuronal pathways from and to the OFC, a critical area for emotional regulation (Barbas, 1995; Davidson, 2000; Ghashghaei and Barbas, 2002; Kawasaki et al., 2005; Kober et a…”

“system, as reflected in diminished left frontal lobe activity (Davidson, 2000).”

“…the field ~Albright et al., 2000; Albright, Kandel, et al., 2000; Cicchetti, 2002; Cicchetti & Cannon, 1999! also represent an unprecedented opportunity to augment current conceptual and methodological approaches to the study of resilience ~Charney, 2004; Curtis & Cicchetti, 2003; Davidson, 2000!.”

“Thus, baseline EEG measures of frontal cortex activity are theorized to provide a relatively noninvasive way to gain insight about an individual’s predisposition toward certain aspects of emotional expression, experience, and regulation (Davidson, 2000).”

“Learning to be outgoing, positive, and to have a sense of agency, are all capacities which use different parts of our brain (Davidson, 2000 ).”

“This finding suggests that CBT has beneficial effects on the subjective feelings of the depressed patients but has relatively minimal effects on neural activity patterns.”

“It is also associated with adaptive responding to negative or stressful events (Davidson, 2000), which may explain why individuals in the mindfulness group had increased left-anterior activation even after writing about negative life events.”

“Low positive affect is conceptually (Watson et al., 1995) and neurologically (see Davidson, 2000) distinct from negative affect.”

“Linking cortisol and affective responses to prolonged acute stress In parallel with variability in cortisol stress response patterns, individuals are also known to differ in their affective responses to stress, including in measures of response threshold, amplitude, and rise time to peak (Davidson, 2000).”

“Neurophysiological differences in antepartum depression exposed neonates may reflect not only abnormalities of early brain processing but may predict later emotional processing or stress vulnerability, with abnormally asymmetric frontal EEG patterns representing a marker of differences in stress response [88] and lowe…”

“…and negative emotion and is predictive of individual differences in affective style in healthy adults and children and also some clinically depressed and anxious individuals even when their symptoms are in remission (see Davidson, 1993, 2000; Davidson, Scherer, & Goldsmith, 2003, for reviews).”

“Studies on emotional responses to arousal conditions have confirmed that the human brain may experience negative and positive states simultaneously in response to the same stressor [68].”

“Frequency Bands In most adult studies, EEG asymmetries have been assessed on 8–13Hz- EEG power, as activity within this frequency band is thought to be inversely related to the degree of cortical activity occurring at a given electrode site (Davidson, 2000).”

“In addition, infants in the prepartum group demonstrated greater relative right frontal electroencephalogram (EEG) asymmetry which had been found to be associated with a disposition towards behavioral inhibition and negative affect later in life [13,14,25].”