Emotion Regulation in Young Adults with Family History of Harmful Alcohol Use: A fMRI Study

Publication Date

2-1-2023

Document Type

Article

Organizational Units

College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, Psychology

Keywords

Emotion regulation, Family history, Alcohol use, Substance use, Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)

Abstract

Background

Alcohol use disorder is associated with difficulties in emotion regulation and cognitive reappraisal. Family history of harmful alcohol use increases risk of substance use disorders, but no studies have examined whether family history is associated with altered neural activation during cognitive reappraisal relative to passive viewing of negative images in a sample of young adults without current substance use disorders.

Methods

Participants (N = 75 with positive [n = 31] or negative [n = 44] family histories of harmful alcohol use) completed the emotion regulation task during an MRI scan, and the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire to assess use of emotion regulation and suppression strategies. Whole-brain analyses and amygdala region of interest analyses using linear mixed-effects models assessed family history group and cue effects on neural activation during the task.

Results

The groups did not differ on trait reappraisal, suppression, or negative emotion following reappraisal. In general, group effects in whole-brain and amygdala activation during the cognitive reappraisal contrast indicated small effect sizes (2.2% of voxels had d>0.20) that were not significantly different. Participants with positive family histories engaged the right middle and superior frontal gyri to a greater extent than participants with negative family histories during the decrease-negative cue (t = 4.14, p = .001).

Conclusions

For at-risk young adults without current harmful substance use, family history of harmful alcohol use does not appear to be associated with disrupted emotion regulation when instructed to apply cognitive reappraisal. Reappraisal may be a feasible therapeutic target for those who develop a substance use disorder with associated emotion dysregulation.

Copyright Date

2-1-2023

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

All Rights Reserved
All Rights Reserved.

Rights Holder

Elsevier

Provenance

Received from author

Language

English (eng)

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by Elsevier. User is responsible for all copyright compliance. This article was originally published as:

Kirk-Provencher, K. T., Penner, A. E., McRae, K., & Gowin, J. L. (2023). Emotion regulation in young adults with family history of harmful alcohol use: A fMRI study. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 243, 109752. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2022.109752

Accepted Manuscript is openly available through the "Link to Full Text" button.

The published Version of Record is available at libraries through Compass or Worldcat.

Publication Title

Drug and Alcohol Dependence

Volume

243

First Page

109752

ISSN

1879-0046

PubMed ID

36610254

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