Physiological correlates of emotional reactivity and regulation in early adolescents

MD Latham; N Cook; JG Simmons; ML Byrne; JWL Kettle; O Schwartz; N Vijayakumar; S Whittle; NB Allen

Journal article

Physiological correlates of emotional reactivity and regulation in early adolescents

MD Latham, N Cook, JG Simmons, ML Byrne, JWL Kettle, O Schwartz, N Vijayakumar, S Whittle, NB Allen

Biological Psychology | ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV | Published : 2017

DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2017.07.018

Abstract

Few studies have examined physiological correlates of emotional reactivity and regulation in adolescents, despite the occurrence in this group of significant developmental changes in emotional functioning. The current study employed multiple physiological measures (i.e., startle-elicited eyeblink and ERP, skin conductance, facial EMG) to assess the emotional reactivity and regulation of 113 early adolescents in response to valenced images. Reactivity was measured while participants viewed images, and regulation was measured when they were asked to discontinue or maintain their emotional reactions to the images. Adolescent participants did not exhibit fear-potentiated startle blink. However, ..

View full abstract

University of Melbourne Researchers

Julian Simmons Author

Orli Schwartz Author

Nandita Vijayakumar Author

Sarah Whittle Author

Related Projects (3)

EMERGING SEVERE MENTAL ILLNESS IN YOUNG PEOPLE

Mental disorders, such as psychotic and severe mood disorders, are the largest cause of disability in Australia. However, there is still lit..

Sensitivity to the environment: Risk and resilience for adolescent depression

Depression is among the leading causes of disability and disease burden throughout the world. Little is known about how biological and envir..

Brain development during adolescence and the emergence of depression: A longitudinal MRI study.

Traditionally mental health services have focused on established disorders. Whilst significant gains in outcomes have been obtained in other..

Grants

Awarded by Australian Research Council

Funding Acknowledgements

The authors would like to sincerely thank the participating families for their loyal support of the Orygen Adolescent Development Study. Funding for this analysis was supported through grants from the Colonial Foundation, the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) (NHMRC Program Grant < gn > 350241 < / gn2 >), and the Australian Research Council (ARC) (ARC Discovery Grant DP0878136). Dr. Sarah Whittle is supported by an NHMRC Career Development Fellowship (ID: 1007716). The authors report no biomedical financial interests or potential conflicts of interest.