Glyn Hallam (University of Sheffield)

This talk will introduce recent work undertaken to address some of the unexplored issues surrounding the neural basis of emotion regulation.
The first of these studies was designed to investigate the neural correlates of interpersonal emotion regulation; changing the emotional state of another person. By using a novel paradigm in fMRI we were able to demonstrate that such a process, when compared against an intrapersonal process (regulating one’s own emotional state) is reflected by activation within areas of the brain previously implicated in social cognition and empathy.
The second study investigates how the neural basis of different forms of emotion regulation strategy may differ according to their ‘voluntary’ or ‘automatic’ nature. This study investigated the effects of one such ‘automatic’ strategy, implementation intentions that achieve a level of automaticity by fostering a strong association between the opportunity to act and the implementation of the action. Results from this fMRI study suggest that implementation intentions supporting emotion regulation may be able to achieve the same behavioural outcomes as more ‘voluntary’ strategies but by means of a different neurophysiological basis.
Finally ongoing work from the lab will be discussed that investigates the use of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) as a potential means for changing the ability of an individual to control one’s own emotional experience.
The implications for all of these studies on our understanding of emotion regulation dysregulation in psychiatric disease will be discussed.