Neural correlates of self-distraction from anxiety and a process model of cognitive emotion regulation.

ABSTRACT: Cognitive strategies used in volitional emotion regulation include self-distraction and reappraisal (reinterpretation). There is debate as to what the psychological and neurobiological mechanisms underlying these strategies are. For example, it is unclear whether self-distraction and reappraisal, although distinct at a phenomenological level, are also mediated by distinct neural processes. This is partly because imaging studies on reappraisal and self-distraction have been performed in different emotional contexts and are difficult to compare. We have therefore investigated the neural correlates of self-distraction, as indexed by a thought suppression task, in an anticipatory anxiety paradigm previously employed by us to study reappraisal. Brain activity was measured by functional magnetic

SUBMITTER: Kalisch R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2638061 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature