Cultivating Affective Resilience: Proof-of-Principle Evidence of Translational Benefits From a Novel Cognitive-Emotional Training Intervention

Abstract

Available evidence highlights the importance of emotion regulation (ER) in psychological well-being. However, translation of the beneficial effects of ER from laboratory to real-life remains scarce. Here, we present proof-of-principle evidence from a novel cognitive-emotional training intervention targeting the development of ER skills aimed at increasing resilience against emotional distress. This pilot intervention involved training military veterans over 5–8 weeks in applying two effective ER strategies [Focused Attention (FA) and Cognitive Reappraisal (CR)] to scenarios presenting emotional conflicts (constructed with both external and internal cues). Training was preceded and followed by neuropsychological, personality, and clinical assessments, and resting-state functional MRI data were also collected from a subsample of the participants. Results show enhanced executive function and psychological well-being following training, reflected in increased working memory (WM), post-traumatic growth (PTG), and general self-efficacy (GSE). Brain imaging results showed evidence of diminished bottom-up influences from emotional and perceptual brain regions, along with evidence of normalized functional connectivity in the large-scale functional networks following training. The latter was reflected in increased connectivity among cognitive and emotion control regions and across regions of self-referential and control networks. Overall, our results provide proof-of-concept evidence that resilience and well-being can be learned through ER training, and that training-related improvements manifested in both behavioral change and neuroplasticity can translate into real-life benefits.

Brain imaging studies of emotional well-being: a scoping review

“…Only nine of the included articles reported the racial or ethnic composition of their samples, and all but one (Day et al, 2019; conducted in Australia) of these were conducted in the United States (Davidson et al, 2003;Heller et al, 2013b;Singleton et al, 2014;Kujawa et al, 2015;Flores et al, 2018;Morelli et al, 2018;Dolcos et al, 2021;Puccetti et al, 2021). Amongst the nine studies reporting racial or ethnic demographic data, the majority of the participants were White (ranging from 65.6 to 95.1%).…”

“…While certain resting state and structural studies-which reflect trait aspects of brain function and structure-did examine the relationships between brain activity and evaluative EWB questionnaire outcomes (e.g., Urry et al, 2004;Kong et al, 2015a,b,c;Kwon et al, 2021), others analyzed these measures separately without seeking to establish correlational or causal links (e.g., Mrazek et al, 2016;Dolcos et al, 2021). In some cases, brain function was evaluated in relation to trait measures of experienced affect over extended periods, as observed in studies addressing the trait neural markers of subjective well-being (e.g., Luo et al, 2014;Sato et al, 2015Sato et al, , 2019Katsumi et al, 2021).…”

“…regulation training program(Dolcos et al, 2021) Prolonged exposure treatment(Fonzo et al, 2017) 12-week lasting self-guided positive imagery training(Velikova and Nordtug, 2017) Cognitive training + Bacopa monnieri(McPhee et al, 2021) …”

Brain Imaging Studies of Emotional Well-Being: A Scoping Review

“…A total of 22 studies (23.16%) were intervention studies (see Table 5 Overall, nine studies included psychological interventions (Dolcos et al, 2021;Fonzo et al, 2017;Velikova et al, 2017;McPhee et al, 2021;Mennella et al, 2017;Xu et al, 2018), six were mindfulness-based studies (Sanger et al, 2018;Singleton et al, 2014;Mrazek et al, 2016;Davidson et al, 2003;Isbel et al, 2019;Schöne et al, 2018), four were a pharmacological intervention Ma et al, 2015, Park et al 2017, Miskowiak et al, 2008, three included physical exercise (Gondoh et al, 2009;Schmitt et al, 2019;Mrazek et al, 2016), one was a non-invasive brain stimulation study (Baeken et al, 2008), and one was a light-exposure based study (Plitnick et al, 2010).…”

“…In general, there was a lack of research into the trait neural correlates of evaluative EWB. While some resting state and structural studies (that reflect trait aspects of brain function and structure), looked for relationships between brain and evaluative EWB questionnaire measures (e.g., Kong et al, 2015a;2015b;2015c;Kwon et al, 2021;Urry et al, 2004), others analyzed these measures separately without looking for relationships between the two (e.g., Dolcos et al, 2021;Mrazek et al, 2016). Alternatively, these trait measures of brain function were sometimes related to trait measures of experienced affect over extended periods (e.g., in studies looking at the trait neural correlates of subjective happiness such as Katsumi et al, 2021;Sato et al, 2015 and2019).…”