Amygdalar function reflects common individual differences in emotion and pain regulation success

Lapate, R. C., Lee, H., Salomons, T. V., van Reekum, C. M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1516-1101, Greischar, L. L. and Davidson, R. J. (2012) Amygdalar function reflects common individual differences in emotion and pain regulation success. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 24 (1). pp. 148-158. ISSN 1530-8898 doi: 10.1162/jocn_a_00125

Abstract/Summary

Although the co-occurrence of negative affect and pain is well recognized, the mechanism underlying their association is unclear. To examine whether a common self-regulatory ability impacts the experience of both emotion and pain, we integrated neuroimaging, behavioral, and physiological measures obtained from three assessments separated by substantial temporal intervals. Out results demonstrated that individual differences in emotion regulation ability, as indexed by an objective measure of emotional state, corrugator electromyography, predicted self-reported success while regulating pain. In both emotion and pain paradigms, the amygdala reflected regulatory success. Notably, we found that greater emotion regulation success was associated with greater change of amygdalar activity following pain regulation. Furthermore, individual differences in degree of amygdalar change following emotion regulation were a strong predictor of pain regulation success, as well as of the degree of amygdalar engagement following pain regulation. These findings suggest that common individual differences in emotion and pain regulatory success are reflected in a neural structure known to contribute to appraisal processes.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/23332
Identification Number/DOI	10.1162/jocn_a_00125
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Life Sciences > School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences > Psychopathology and Affective Neuroscience Interdisciplinary Research Centres (IDRCs) > Centre for Integrative Neuroscience and Neurodynamics (CINN) Life Sciences > School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences > Department of Psychology Life Sciences > School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences > Neuroscience
Publisher	MIT Press
Publisher Statement	© Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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