Neural Predictors of Social Emotion Regulation Training

Columbia University

Status: Completed

Conditions: Emotions; Rumination

Treatments: Behavioral: Social regulation; Behavioral: Self regulation

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT03487081

R01AG043463 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

AAAR8654

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of this study is to investigate the basic psychological and neural mechanisms underlying the social regulation of emotion - that is, how one person's actions can impact, or regulate - the emotions of another person - and how this ability changes with practice. As such, this study is not designed to directly address clinical health outcomes and provide no treatment or intervention.

Full description

Prior research has demonstrated that helping others regulate their emotions has benefits for the support provider. But little is known about the basic brain mechanisms underlying this ability or how this ability can change with practice. To address these questions, this study has two parts. In the first, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is used to gain insight into the brain systems involved in helping others regulate negative emotions by comparing them to the brain systems involved in regulating the participants' own negative emotions. In the second part, participants engage in three weeks of structured practice, or training, in either socially regulating others' emotions or in self-regulating their own emotions. The investigators predict that helping others regulate their emotions will involve many of the same brain regions implicated in regulating one's own emotions, in addition to regions involved in perspective taking and the reward of helping others. Further, when relating the brain data from part 1 to the regulation practice data from part 2, the investigators expect that individuals who in part 1 show greater activity in brain regions supporting either social or self-regulation may be more likely in part 2 to show corresponding improvements in regulation performance. The results of these studies are intended to lay the groundwork for future studies investigating the social regulation of emotion in older adults and clinical populations for whom social support can be beneficial.

Enrollment: 62 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 35 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Native English speaker
• Right handed

Exclusion criteria

• Current or past history of neurological or psychiatric illness
• Use of psychoactive drugs
• Individuals who have metal devices or implants that cannot be removed from their body (e.g., piercings, pacemakers, copper intrauterine devices (IUDs))
• Pregnant women

Trial design

Primary purpose: Basic Science

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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62 participants in 2 patient groups

Social regulation

Experimental group

Description:

Following the fMRI session, participants in the social regulation group will be asked to rate their mood twice a day for 3 weeks. Furthermore, every other day, they will receive one event written by another participant. They will be asked to help the other person use emotion regulation strategies to feel less negative. The participant will answer brief questions related to his/her feelings after receiving the event and after providing social emotion regulation.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Social regulation

Self regulation

Active Comparator group

Description:

Following the fMRI session, participants in the self regulation group will be asked to rate their mood twice a day for 3 weeks. Furthermore, every other day, they will write an event that caused them negative emotions. They will be asked to use emotion regulation strategies to decrease their negative emotions. The participant will answer brief questions related to his/her feelings after writing the event and after implementing the emotion regulation strategy.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Self regulation