Multivariate Brain Activity While Viewing and Reappraising Affective Scenes Does Not Predict the Multiyear Progression of Preclinical Atherosclerosis in Otherwise Healthy Midlife Adults

Publication Date

2-19-2022

Document Type

Article

Organizational Units

College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, Psychology

Keywords

Emotion regulation, Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), Cognitive reappraisal, Cardiovascular disease (CVD)

Abstract

Cognitive reappraisal is an emotion regulation strategy that is postulated to reduce risk for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (CVD), particularly the risk due to negative affect. At present, however, the brain systems and vascular pathways that may link reappraisal to CVD risk remain unclear. This study thus tested whether brain activity evoked by using reappraisal to reduce negative affect would predict the multiyear progression of a vascular marker of preclinical atherosclerosis and CVD risk: carotid artery intima-media thickness (CA-IMT). Participants were 176 otherwise healthy adults (50.6% women; aged 30–51 years) who completed a functional magnetic resonance imaging task involving the reappraisal of unpleasant scenes from the International Affective Picture System. Ultrasonography was used to compute CA-IMT at baseline and a median of 2.78 (interquartile range, 2.67 to 2.98) years later among 146 participants. As expected, reappraisal engaged brain systems implicated in emotion regulation. Reappraisal also reduced self-reported negative affect. On average, CA-IMT progressed over the follow-up period. However, multivariate and cross-validated machine-learning models demonstrated that brain activity during reappraisal failed to predict CA-IMT progression. Contrary to hypotheses, brain activity during cognitive reappraisal to reduce negative affect does not appear to forecast the progression of a vascular marker of CVD risk.

Copyright Date

2-19-2022

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

All Rights Reserved
All Rights Reserved.

Rights Holder

The Society for Affective Science

Provenance

Received from author

Language

English (eng)

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by The Society for Affective Science. User is responsible for all copyright compliance. This article was originally published as:

Gianaros, P. J., Rasero, J., DuPont, C. M., Kraynak, T. E., Gross, J. J., McRae, K., Wright, A. G. C., Verstynen, T. D., & Barinas-Mitchell, E. (2022). Multivariate Brain Activity while Viewing and Reappraising Affective Scenes Does Not Predict the Multiyear Progression of Preclinical Atherosclerosis in Otherwise Healthy Midlife Adults. Affective Science, 3(2), 406–424. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42761-021-00098-y

Publication Title

Affective Science

Volume

3(2)

First Page

406

Last Page

424

ISSN

2662-2041

PubMed ID

36046001



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