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. 2019 Apr 5;9(1):5738.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-42139-4.

Age-Related Differences in the Late Positive Potential during Emotion Regulation between Adolescents and Adults

Xinmei Deng  1   2 , Biao Sang  3   4 , Yixuan Ku  5 , Liyang Sai  6
Affiliations

Age-Related Differences in the Late Positive Potential during Emotion Regulation between Adolescents and Adults

Xinmei Deng et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

The late positive potential (LPP) has been well documented in predicting the effect of emotion regulation in previous developmental literature. However, few studies have examined age-related changes in emotion regulation from adolescence to adulthood using this biomarker. To test this, Reactivity and Regulation-Image Task was used to test 18 young adolescents and 22 adults to examine the modulation of LPP during emotion regulation. Results revealed that (a) on the behavioral level, adults reported higher intensity of emotional experience than adolescents when they were asked to use up-regulation. Down-regulation showed no age effect for self-reported rating; (b) adolescents showed higher amplitudes of LPP than adults when using different regulatory strategies in all windows; (c) In late time window, regulation effect was larger when using up-regulation strategy than down-regulation strategy for adolescents, while the difference between the two strategies was negligible for adults. (d) In early time window, reactivity effect was larger in negative conditions than in positive conditions for adolescents, while the difference between the two conditions was again negligible for adults. Differences in the amplitudes and time courses of LPP during emotion regulation between adolescents and adults suggested that age-related changes in emotion regulation may occur during adolescence.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Procedure of Each Trial.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Behavioral results for different experiment condition between adolescents and adults.
Figure 3
Figure 3
The ERP wave forms at the medial-posterior recoding sites for different experimental conditions between adolescents and adults.
Figure 4
Figure 4
LPP averages in early time windows in different experimental conditions between adolescents and adults.
Figure 5
Figure 5
LPP averages in middle time windows in different experimental conditions between adolescents and adults.
Figure 6
Figure 6
LPP averages in late time windows in different experimental conditions between adolescents and adults.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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