Developmental Neuroscience Perspectives on Emotion Regulation

“The development of all human characteristics is genetically influenced, in the sense that the genetic code carries transmissible information to assemble and regulate the organism (Lamb et al., 2006).”

“We have related individual differences in voluntary ER to other dimensions of affective style and psychopathology, as have others (Ochsner & Gross, 2005; Quirk et al., 2006).”

“Because simple cued-based emotional associative learning is thought to be amygdala dependent (Phelps & LeDoux, 2005), the extinction process is understood to depend on inhibitory pathways from PFC to amygdala that attenuate amygdala responsivity.”

“Much recent scholarly activity has been devoted to thedefinitionandoperationalizationofemotionregulation(ER), as well as to the clarification of the myriad ways in which dysregulated emotion is associated with psychopathology ( Cole, Martin, & Dennis, 2004 ).”

“explicitly suggested that such genetic variation modulates prefrontal–amygdala reactivity and as such affects vulnerability to depression (Pezawas et al., 2005).”

“Davidson and colleagues (Urry et al., 2006) used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine whether voluntary ER produced variations in amygdala activation and whether such changes in amygdala function were associated with variations in prefrontal function, as the anatomical circuitry…”

“Children who had experienced various forms of psychological neglect and social isolation were delayed in learning to differentiate facial expressions of emotion ( Pollak, Cicchetti, Hornung, & Reed, 2000; Wismer Fries & Pollak, 2004).”

“Urry et al. (2006). AUC 5 area under the curve; VMPFC 5 ventromedial prefrontal cortex.”

“…in children is twin studies, and here, we focus on twin studies that have investigated ER in the sense proposed by Rothbart and colleagues (Derryberry & Rothbart, 1997; Rothbart, Ellis, Rueda, & Posner, 2003), that is, effortful control of behavioral actions, often accomplished via…”

“Indeed, behavioral genetic analyses suggest that many of the emotional problems observed in abused children are attributable to environmental effects, with vulnerability to experience modulated by genetic factors (Jaffee, Caspi, Moffitt, & Taylor, 2004; Kaufman et al., 2004).”

“Taken together, these studies and others (such as Dodge, Pettit, Bates, & Valente, 1995 ) suggest that rather than using their attentional resources to attenuate emotional reactivity, abused children automatically attend to threatening cues, perhaps at the expense of other contextually relevant information.”

“Recent evidence implicates genetic variations in serotonergic function in the modulation of amygdala reactivity (Hariri & Holmes, 2006), and some have explicitly suggested that such genetic variation modulates prefrontal–amygdala reactivity and as such affects vulnerability to depression (Pezawas…”

“…studies, and here, we focus on twin studies that have investigated ER in the sense proposed by Rothbart and colleagues (Derryberry & Rothbart, 1997; Rothbart, Ellis, Rueda, & Posner, 2003), that is, effortful control of behavioral actions, often accomplished via allocating attention adaptively.”

“Using Neuroimaging Methods to Interrogate the Brain Circuitry That Underlies Individual Differences in Voluntary ER We have related individual differences in voluntary ER to other dimensions of affective style and psychopathology, as have others (Ochsner & Gross, 2005; Quirk et al., 2006).”

“We also found that abused children were able to accurately identify facial displays of anger on the basis of less sensory input than their peers (Pollak & Sinha, 2002).”

“In these studies, we found that children who had experienced direct physical maltreatment from their parents had adjusted their sensory thresholds for perception of angry but not other facial expressions (Pollak & Kistler, 2002).”

“Indeed, behavioral genetic analyses suggestthatmanyoftheemotionalproblemsobservedinabused children are attributable to environmental effects, with vulnerability to experience modulated by genetic factors ( Jaffee, Caspi, Moffitt, & Taylor, 2004; Kaufman et al., 2004).”

“Moreover, because structural variations in ventromedial PFC predict extinction in humans (Milard et al., 2005) and because ventromedial PFC shows dramatic changes over the course of adolescence (Toga, Thompson, & Sowell, 2006), the study of relations between developmental changes in prefrontal…”

“CBQ Effortful Control Factor scores .53 55 .35 64 Fan et al. (2001) ; 14‐42 years”

“For instance, differences in infant– mother attachment appear to be at most weakly influenced by genetic differences and thus necessarily primarily associated with nongenetic differences (Bokhorst et al., 2003; O'Connor & Croft, 2001).”

“…on both chromosomes at the site of this SNP have decreased levels of dopamine in prefrontal areas and perform worse on various attention and executive function tasks than those who are homozygous for the methionine codon (e.g., Blasi et al., 2005) or are heterozygous (e.g., Wahlstrom et al., 2007).”

“Mice with one or two copies of the short allele show more fearful reactions to stresses such as loud sounds ( Murphy, Li, & Engel, 2001 ).”

“Nonabused controls were better able to regulate their attention and emotional responses once they had assessed that the anger was notpersonallyrelevant( Pollak,Vardi,Bechner,&Curtin,2005 ).”

“Children who had experienced various forms of psychological neglect and social isolation were delayed in learning to differentiate facial expressions of emotion (Pollak, Cicchetti, Hornung, & Reed, 2000; Wismer Fries & Pollak, 2004).”

“Social interactions between young organisms and their caregiversappeartohave downstreameffectsonsystemssuchasthe hypothalamic‐pituitary‐adrenal axis, functionsassociated with the orbital‐ventral regions of the PFC ( Schrijver, Pallier, Brown, & Wurbel, 2004 ), and neuropeptide systems that regulate social behavior (Ca…”

“However, a review concludes that this SNP in the COMT gene usually accounts for only about 4% of the variance in task performance (Heinz & Smolka, 2006).”

“Although most extant research on attention and emotion has focused on visual processing and facial expressions, we are finding even more robust effects when abused children are presented with auditory emotional cues, such as angry voices (Shackman & Pollak, 2005).”

“CBQ Attentional Focusing and Inhibitory Control scales (mother/father average) .68a 214 .07a 349 Lemery-Chalfant et al. (2008) ; 5.5 years”

“…on both chromosomes at the site of this SNP have decreased levels of dopamine in prefrontal areas and perform worse on various attention and executive function tasks than those who are homozygous for the methionine codon (e.g., Blasi et al., 2005) or are heterozygous (e.g., Wahlstrom et al., 2007).”

“Although most extant research on attention and emotion has focused on visual processing and facial expressions, we are finding even more robust effects when abused children are presented with auditory emotional cues, such as angry voices (Shackman & Pollak, 2005).”

“With the exception of the Chinese (Fan, Wu, Fossella, & Posner, 2001) and Japanese (Yamagata et al., 2005) studies, the data are confined to childhood.”

“…and their caregivers appear to have downstream effects on systems such as the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis, functions associated with the orbital–ventral regions of the PFC (Schrijver, Pallier, Brown, & Wurbel, 2004), and neuropeptide systems that regulate social behavior (Carter, 2005).”

“These findings are consistent with nonhuman animal studies that implicate the role of circuitry involving the medial thalamic nucleus, amygdala, and orbitofrontal cortex in assigning emotional significance to stimuli (Kawagoe et al., 2007; Quirk et al., 2006).”

“On the basis of eight twin studies, Goldsmith et al. (2008) concluded, “individual differences in childhood effortful control are at least moderately heritable” (Goldsmith et al. 2008, p. 133; also see Young et al. 2009).”

“…more about the human prefrontal cortex (PFC),which exerts top-down inhibitory control over subcortical circuits involved in trait impulsivity and trait anxiety (see e.g., Beauchaine, 2015a, 2015b; Beauchaine and McNulty, 2013; Goldsmith et al., 2008; Heatherton, 2011; Heatherton and Wagner, 2011).”