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. 2022 Jun;12(6):e2597.
doi: 10.1002/brb3.2597. Epub 2022 May 13.

Built to last: Theta and delta changes in resting-state EEG activity after regulating emotions

Gaia Lapomarda  1   2 , Stefania Valer  1 , Remo Job  1 , Alessandro Grecucci  1
Affiliations

Built to last: Theta and delta changes in resting-state EEG activity after regulating emotions

Gaia Lapomarda et al. Brain Behav. 2022 Jun.

Abstract

Background: Over the past years, electroencephalography (EEG) studies focused on task-related activity to characterize cortical responses associated with emotion regulation (ER), without exploring the possibility that regulating emotions can leave a trace in the brain by affecting its oscillatory activity. Demonstrating whether the effect of regulation alters the brain activity after the session and whether this reflects an increased cognitive regulatory ability has great relevance.

Methods: To address this issue, 5 min of electrical brain activity at rest were recorded before and after (1) one session in which participants perceived and regulated (through distancing) their emotions (regulation session, ReS), and (2) another session in which they only perceived emotions (attend session, AtS). One hundred and sixty visual stimuli were presented, and subjective ratings of valence and arousal of stimuli were recorded.

Results: Behavioral results showed the efficacy of the regulation strategy in modulating both arousal and valence. A cluster-based permutation test on EEG data at rest revealed a significant increase in theta and delta activity after the ReS compared to the AtS, suggesting that regulating emotions can alter brain activity after the session.

Conclusions: These results allowed us to outline a comprehensive view of the neurophysiological mechanisms associated with ER, as well as some possible implications in psychotherapy.

Keywords: delta frequency; distancing; emotion regulation; resting-state EEG; theta frequency.

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Conflict of interest statement

All authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Timeline of events during the emotion regulation task
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Behavioral results. Participants showed an effect of the regulation when applying the regulation strategy. Distancing (ReS) reduced arousal (strength of perceived emotions), and increased valence (perceived as less negative) with respect to the control condition Attend to (AtS). Error bars indicate the standard error of the mean
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Topographic plots of cluster‐based permutation results and Correlation with ERQ and DERS scores. Topographic distributions of the positive clusters indicate an effect of condition corresponding to increased (A1) Delta and (B1) Theta frequencies in the post‐ReS compared with the post‐AtS. (A2) ERQ‐Reappraisal score positively correlated with delta activity after the regulation session (r = .43, p = .01), that is the better the tendency to regulate emotions, the higher the delta activity. (B2) DERS score negatively correlated with theta activity after regulation (r = −.41, p = .02), that is the stronger the difficulties in regulating emotions, the lower the theta activity
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