vlPFC–vmPFC–Amygdala Interactions Underlie Age-Related Differences in Cognitive Regulation of Emotion

Abstract

Emotion regulation is a critical life skill that develops throughout childhood and adolescence. Despite this development in emotional processes, little is known about how the underlying brain systems develop with age. This study examined emotion regulation in 112 individuals (aged 6-23 years) as they viewed aversive and neutral images using a reappraisal task. On "reappraisal" trials, participants were instructed to view the images as distant, a strategy that has been previously shown to reduce negative affect. On "reactivity" trials, participants were instructed to view the images without regulating emotions to assess baseline emotional responding. During reappraisal, age predicted less negative affect, reduced amygdala responses and inverse coupling between the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and amygdala. Moreover, left ventrolateral prefrontal (vlPFC) recruitment mediated the relationship between increasing age and diminishing amygdala responses. This negative vlPFC-amygdala association was stronger for individuals with inverse coupling between the amygdala and vmPFC. These data provide evidence that vmPFC-amygdala connectivity facilitates vlPFC-related amygdala modulation across development.

‘Emotional Intelligence’: Lessons from Lesions

“…Additionally, vlPFC and amygdala lesions have also been found to disrupt emotion regulation abilities [77,78]. These findings are compatible with an extensive functional neuroimaging literature suggesting that network-level interactions between the vlPFC, vmPFC, and amygdala are involved in successful emotion regulation [e.g., 79]. …”

The association between early life stress and prefrontal cortex activation during implicit emotion regulation is moderated by sex in early adolescence

“…Although there are no known direct anatomical connections between vlPFC and the amygdala, vlPFC is posited to modulate amygdala response through activation in the medial PFC (Pessoa, 2010; Pessoa, Kastner, & Ungerleider, 2002; Silvers et al, 2016). Cognitive reappraisal has been associated with a negative correlation between vlPFC and amygdala activation (Silvers et al, 2016).…”

The transition from childhood to adolescence is marked by a general decrease in amygdala reactivity and an affect-specific ventral-to-dorsal shift in medial prefrontal recruitment

“…Because the present manuscript is focused on uninstructed emotional responding, only results related to “Look” trials, wherein participants were instructed to “look at the picture like your normally would” are presented here. A separate manuscript reported on results comparing the other two trial types (“Close” and “Far”), wherein participants were instructed to either adopt a more emotionally immersed or distant mindset (Silvers et al, in press), but did not characterize results associated with Look trials. Close and Far trials constrain participant responding so that it is either pushed to be reactive or regulated whereas when individuals are left to their own devices (i.e., on Look trials), they may spontaneously adopt a mindset that is elsewhere on the reactive-regulated continuum.…”

“…This suggest that perhaps children interpret a broader variety of affective and neutral stimuli as being salient or personally relevant than do adults and thus show elevated amygdala responses for both aversive and non-aversive stimuli. Among studies that have specifically examined age-related effects in the amygdala for aversive stimuli, several have focused on contrasts between aversive stimuli and fixation (Gee et al, 2013), or, in the case of our own work, on the effects of different regulatory conditions on responses to aversive stimuli (Silvers et al, in press; Silvers et al, 2015). While such approaches are useful for characterizing changes in amygdala function in affective contexts, they do not address whether or not such age-related changes are unique to affective contexts.…”

“…With regards to vmPFC, prior neuroimaging studies have revealed that vmPFC responses to aversive stimuli decrease during adolescence (McRae et al, 2012), and that functional connectivity between vmPFC and the amygdala in response to aversive stimuli is initially positive but becomes negative during the transition from childhood to adolescence (Gee et al, 2013; Silvers et al, in press). Such work suggests that vmPFC responses to aversive stimuli generally decrease with age but also that the way in which vmPFC and the amygdala interact changes as well.…”