Understanding cognitive mechanisms of emotion regulation in aging

了解衰老过程中情绪调节的认知机制

基本信息

批准号：
8670684
负责人：
KEVIN N OCHSNER
金额：
$ 46.96万
依托单位：
COLUMBIA UNIV NEW YORK MORNINGSIDE
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
财政年份：
2013
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2013-06-15 至 2018-04-30
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8670684
关键词：
Adult Affective Age Aging American Amygdaloid structure Behavior Behavior Control Behavior Therapy Behavioral Brain Chronic Circadian Rhythms Cognitive Corpus striatum structure Data Development Elderly Elements Emotional Emotions Event Exhibits Face Fostering Freedom Functional Imaging Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Goals Health Holocaust survivor Impaired cognition Impairment Individual Investigation Lateral Lead Life Cycle Stages Longevity Measures Medial Modeling Neurobiology Neurosciences Research Participant Pathway interactions Personal Satisfaction Population Principal Investigator Process Psyche structure Regulation Reporting Risk Source Staging Stimulus Stress Suggestion Support System System Testing Variant age group age related aged coping design emotion regulation flexibility gaze imaging modality mortality neural model neuromechanism positive emotional state premature programs psychologic public health relevance relating to nervous system research study response skills social success therapy development young adult

项目摘要

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): As the baby boomers grow into older adulthood, the number of Americans aged 65+ rises 175% over the next twenty years when older adults will comprise ~20% of the population by the year 2030. As such, understanding the psychological and neural mechanisms supporting their emotional health and well-being is of the utmost importance. Happily, while cognitive abilities decline, older adults report more positive emotion in their daily lives and preferentially attend to and remember positive stimuli and events. Exactly why older adults exhibit these positivity biases is not yet clear, however. Among the possible reasons, how older adults regulate their emotion has been advanced as a potentially key factor in need of further investigation. Evidence suggests that older adults have chronically activated goals to regulate their emotion and effectively use strategies that influence the situations in which they place themselves, how they attend to them, and how their emotions manifest in overt behavior. However, one can't - and perhaps shouldn't - always try to avoid, modify, ignore or suppress expressive responses to the stressful health/mortality-related situations that become frequent in older age. Another regulatory option would be to use reappraisal, a cognitive strategy whereby changing one's interpretation of events changes one's emotional responses to them. Reappraisal is among the most effective and beneficial regulatory strategies for maintaining mental, physical and social health. Unfortunately, it isn't yet clear whether older adults are adept at using reappraisal, and what psychological and neural mechanisms determine their level of reappraisal skill. Of the few studies focusing on reappraisal in aging, some suggest impairment and others do not. Here we use fMRI to systematically examine whether, when and why older adults are effective at reappraisal. As such, this proposal responds directly to FOA PAR- 11-337's's call for applications that examine social, affective and cognitive behaviors of relevance to aging at the behavioral, psychological and neurobiological levels. Guided by a model of the neural systems supporting effective reappraisal in young adults, we will test hypotheses about the contexts where reappraisal ability could be impaired - or intact - in aging. We hypothesize that the extent to which an older adult can effectively reappraise depends on two kinds of factors, each a focus of one of our Specific Aims. Under Aim 1 we will conduct two experiments examining the extent to which older adults ability to reappraise depends on specific cognitive processes involved in the reappraisal strategies/tactics that are deployed. Under Aim 2 we will conduct two more experiments asking how older adults ability to reappraise depends on their goals to decrease or increase emotion, and whether their chronic regulatory goals lead them to effectively initiate regulation on their own. Together, these studies could have important implications for understanding both normal and abnormal emotional health in older age and foster development of interventions that enhance well- being and the ability to cope with the stress associated with the physical and cognitive decline of older age.

描述（由申请人提供）：随着婴儿潮一代步入老年，未来 20 年美国 65 岁以上的人数将增加 175%，到 2030 年老年人将占总人口的约 20%。因此，了解支持他们情绪健康和幸福的心理和神经机制至关重要。令人高兴的是，虽然认知能力下降，但老年人在日常生活中表现出更多的积极情绪，并且优先关注和记住积极的刺激和事件。确切地然而，为什么老年人表现出这些积极偏见尚不清楚。在可能的原因中，老年人如何调节情绪已被认为是需要进一步研究的潜在关键因素。有证据表明，老年人长期激活目标来调节自己的情绪，并有效地使用策略来影响他们所处的情境、他们的关注方式以及他们的情绪在公开行为中的表现方式。然而，人们不能——或许也不应该——总是试图避免、改变、忽视或抑制对老年时常见的压力健康/死亡相关情况的表达反应。另一种监管选择是使用重新评估，这是一种认知策略，通过改变一个人对事件的解释来改变一个人对事件的情绪反应。重新评估是维持精神、身体和社会健康的最有效和有益的监管策略之一。不幸的是，目前尚不清楚老年人是否善于使用重新评估，以及哪些心理和神经机制决定了他们的重新评估技能水平。在少数专注于重新评估衰老的研究中，一些研究表明存在损伤，而另一些则没有。在这里，我们使用功能磁共振成像来系统地检查老年人是否、何时以及为何能够有效地进行重新评估。因此，该提案直接响应了 FOA PAR-11-337 的呼吁，即在行为、心理和神经生物学层面上检查与衰老相关的社会、情感和认知行为。在支持年轻人有效重新评估的神经系统模型的指导下，我们将测试有关重新评估能力在衰老过程中可能受损或完好的情况的假设。我们假设老年人能够有效地重新评估的程度取决于两种因素，每一种因素都是我们特定目标之一的焦点。在目标 1 下，我们将进行两项实验，检验老年人重新评估能力在多大程度上取决于所部署的重新评估策略/策略中涉及的特定认知过程。在目标 2 下，我们将进行另外两项实验，询问老年人重新评估的能力如何取决于他们减少或增加情绪的目标，以及他们的长期调节目标是否导致他们有效地自行启动调节。在一起，这些研究可能对了解老年人正常和异常的情绪健康具有重要意义，并促进制定干预措施，以增强福祉和应对与老年人身体和认知衰退相关的压力的能力年龄。