TY - JOUR
T1 - Cultivating Affective Resilience: Proof-of-Principle Evidence of Translational Benefits From a Novel Cognitive-Emotional Training Intervention
AU - Dolcos, Sanda
AU - Hu, Yifan
AU - Williams, Christian
AU - Bogdan, Paul C.
AU - Hohl, Kelly
AU - Berenbaum, Howard
AU - Dolcos, Florin
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was conducted in part at the Biomedical Imaging Center of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC-BI-BIC). Funding. This research was supported by a seed grant from the Chez Family Foundation Center for Wounded Veterans in Higher Education, at the University of Illinois.
Publisher Copyright:
© Copyright © 2021 Dolcos, Hu, Williams, Bogdan, Hohl, Berenbaum and Dolcos.
PY - 2021/3/9
Y1 - 2021/3/9
N2 - Available evidence highlights the importance of emotion regulation (ER) in psychological well-being. However, translation of the beneficial effects of ER from laboratory to real-life remains scarce. Here, we present proof-of-principle evidence from a novel cognitive-emotional training intervention targeting the development of ER skills aimed at increasing resilience against emotional distress. This pilot intervention involved training military veterans over 5–8 weeks in applying two effective ER strategies [Focused Attention (FA) and Cognitive Reappraisal (CR)] to scenarios presenting emotional conflicts (constructed with both external and internal cues). Training was preceded and followed by neuropsychological, personality, and clinical assessments, and resting-state functional MRI data were also collected from a subsample of the participants. Results show enhanced executive function and psychological well-being following training, reflected in increased working memory (WM), post-traumatic growth (PTG), and general self-efficacy (GSE). Brain imaging results showed evidence of diminished bottom-up influences from emotional and perceptual brain regions, along with evidence of normalized functional connectivity in the large-scale functional networks following training. The latter was reflected in increased connectivity among cognitive and emotion control regions and across regions of self-referential and control networks. Overall, our results provide proof-of-concept evidence that resilience and well-being can be learned through ER training, and that training-related improvements manifested in both behavioral change and neuroplasticity can translate into real-life benefits.
AB - Available evidence highlights the importance of emotion regulation (ER) in psychological well-being. However, translation of the beneficial effects of ER from laboratory to real-life remains scarce. Here, we present proof-of-principle evidence from a novel cognitive-emotional training intervention targeting the development of ER skills aimed at increasing resilience against emotional distress. This pilot intervention involved training military veterans over 5–8 weeks in applying two effective ER strategies [Focused Attention (FA) and Cognitive Reappraisal (CR)] to scenarios presenting emotional conflicts (constructed with both external and internal cues). Training was preceded and followed by neuropsychological, personality, and clinical assessments, and resting-state functional MRI data were also collected from a subsample of the participants. Results show enhanced executive function and psychological well-being following training, reflected in increased working memory (WM), post-traumatic growth (PTG), and general self-efficacy (GSE). Brain imaging results showed evidence of diminished bottom-up influences from emotional and perceptual brain regions, along with evidence of normalized functional connectivity in the large-scale functional networks following training. The latter was reflected in increased connectivity among cognitive and emotion control regions and across regions of self-referential and control networks. Overall, our results provide proof-of-concept evidence that resilience and well-being can be learned through ER training, and that training-related improvements manifested in both behavioral change and neuroplasticity can translate into real-life benefits.
KW - affective resilience
KW - emotion regulation training
KW - emotion-cognition interactions
KW - emotional memory recollection
KW - emotional well-being
KW - large-scale functional brain networks
KW - resting state fMRI
KW - transfer effects of intervention
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U2 - 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.585536
DO - 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.585536
M3 - Article
C2 - 33767643
SN - 1664-1078
VL - 12
JO - Frontiers in Psychology
JF - Frontiers in Psychology
M1 - 585536
ER -