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Daily-Life Negative Affect in Emotional Distress Disorders Associated with Altered Frontoinsular Emotion Regulation Activation and Cortical Gyrification

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Abstract

Background

Emotional distress disorders are characterized by high daily-life negative affect and impaired positive reappraisal emotion regulation ability. These disorders have been associated with altered frontoinsular functioning in important emotion regulation regions, especially medial prefrontal cortex (PFC) and insula, and with structural abnormalities that could be indicative of aberrant underlying connectivity. However, the relationship between frontoinsular activation and structural morphometry with daily-life negative affect is unclear.

Methods

Using multimodal neuroimaging and ambulatory assessment, individuals with emotional distress disorders (n = 27) completed a positive reappraisal emotion regulation task during scanning and subsequently reported on their daily-life negative affect repeatedly for two weeks.

Results

Increased daily-life negative affect was associated with increased medial PFC positive reappraisal activation. In contrast, increased daily-life negative affect was associated with decreased positive reappraisal activation in the left insula and cognitive flexibility regions (putamen and cerebellum). Additionally, increased daily-life negative affect was associated with left insula hypergyria and right posterior/inferior parietal hypogyria. Follow-up psychophysiological interactions analyses found increased daily-life negative affect associated with increased medial PFC-insula functional connectivity during positive reappraisal.

Conclusions

Results suggest frontoinsular emotion regulation activation and gyrification abnormalities could be markers of increased daily-life negative affect and important treatment targets for emotional distress disorders.

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Funding

This study was funded by NIMH grant [R21 MH100359; John G. Kerns and Timothy J. Trull] and University of Missouri dissertation research funds [Jessica P. Y. Hua].

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Correspondence to John G. Kerns.

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Conflict of Interest

Jessica P. Y. Hua, Timothy J. Trull, Anne M. Merrill, Oriana T. T. Myers, Kelsey T. Straub, and John G. Kerns declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Informed Consent

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (national and institutional). Informed consent was obtained from all individual subjects participating in the study.

Animal Rights

No animal studies were carried out by the authors for this article.

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Hua, J.P.Y., Trull, T.J., Merrill, A.M. et al. Daily-Life Negative Affect in Emotional Distress Disorders Associated with Altered Frontoinsular Emotion Regulation Activation and Cortical Gyrification. Cogn Ther Res 45, 1–18 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-020-10155-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-020-10155-8

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