Publication Date
3-2018
Document Type
Article
Organizational Units
College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, Psychology
Keywords
Positive emotions, Stress recovery, Ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), Change-point analysis, Emotion regulation
Abstract
Despite accruing evidence showing that positive emotions facilitate stress recovery, the neural basis for this effect remains unclear. To identify the underlying mechanism, we compared stress recovery for people reflecting on a stressor while in a positive emotional context with that for people in a neutral context. While blood–oxygen-level dependent data were being collected, participants (N = 43) performed a stressful anagram task, which was followed by a recovery period during which they reflected on the stressor while watching a positive or neutral video. Participants also reported positive and negative emotions throughout the task as well as retrospective thoughts about the task. Although there was no effect of experimental context on emotional recovery, we found that ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) activation during the stressor predicted more positive emotions during recovery, which in turn predicted less negative emotions during recovery. In addition, the relationship between vmPFC activation and positive emotions during recovery was mediated by decentering—the meta-cognitive detachment of oneself from one’s feelings. In sum, successful recovery from a stressor seems to be due to activation of positive emotion-related regions during the stressor itself as well as to their downstream effects on certain cognitive forms of emotion regulation.
Copyright Date
2-16-2018
Copyright Statement / License for Reuse
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Publication Statement
Copyright is held by the authors. User is responsible for all copyright compliance. This article was originally published as:
Yang, X., Garcia, K. M., Jung, Y., Whitlow, C. T., McRae, K., & Waugh, C. E. (2018). VmPFC activation during a stressor predicts positive emotions during stress recovery. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 13(3), 256-268. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsy012
Rights Holder
Xi Yang, Katelyn M. Garcia, Youngkyoo Jung, Christopher T. Whitlow, Kateri McRae, and Christian E. Waugh
Provenance
Received from CHORUS
File Format
application/pdf
Language
English (eng)
Extent
13 pgs
File Size
558 KB
Publication Title
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
Volume
13
Issue
3
First Page
256
Last Page
268
ISSN
1749-5024
PubMed ID
29462404
Recommended Citation
Yang, Xi; Garcia, Katelyn M.; Jung, Youngkyoo; Whitlow, Christopher T.; McRae, Kateri; and Waugh, Christian E., "VmPFC Activation During a Stressor Predicts Positive Emotions During Stress Recovery" (2018). Psychology: Faculty Scholarship. 55.
https://digitalcommons.du.edu/psychology_faculty/55
https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsy012
DOI Link
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