Developmental risk factors and outcomes associated with impulsive reactions to emotions

Abstract

Deficits in emotion regulation, such as impulsive reactions to emotional experiences, often follows early adversity and appear across many forms of psychopathology. However, there is limited research on factors that may contribute to differences in emotion regulation and on the potential protective effects of emotion regulation. Data on both developmental risk factors and outcomes associated with impulsive reactions to emotional experiences are needed to develop effective and targeted intervention programs. The current dissertation utilized questionnaire, behavioral, and neuroimaging data to examine early experiences that have been theorized to contribute to impulsive reactions to emotions, and also whether better regulation reduces risk for negative impacts of early adversity. Study 1 compared the performance and neural underpinnings of inhibitory control in the context of emotional distraction of 38 healthy adults with childhood maltreatment histories and 34 non-maltreated healthy adults. Results indicated that resilience to psychopathology after childhood maltreatment is associated with better inhibitory control and more efficient neural activity in the context negative emotional distraction. Results also showed greater adaptive functioning in everyday contexts was associated with better inhibitory control and greater activation in an action-monitoring brain region during negative emotional distraction. Study 2 examined differences in psychopathology and self-reported, performance-based, and neuroimaging measures of impulsive reactions to emotional experiences in 50 adolescent girls with histories of self-harm and 21 comparison adolescent girls. As expected, the adolescents who engaged in self-harm behaviors reported more impulsive reactions to negative emotional experiences. However, rather than showing a specific deficit in the context of negative emotions, as expected, they showed relatively worse regulation and less efficient neural activity across both emotional and non-emotional conditions. Across all adolescents, internalizing and externalizing symptoms related to worse inhibitory control in negative contexts. Study 3 sought to determine whether the relationship between childhood maltreatment and self-harm in a sample of 50 adolescent girls was moderated by impulsive reactions to emotions and associated neural activation. Unexpectedly, maltreatment history was not related to self-harm frequency in this sample and therefore analyses examining moderation were not run. Overall, the current project addresses gaps in our understanding about impulsive reactions to emotional experiences.