Monday, December 30, 2024
12/30/2024
ABSTRACT Emotion dysregulation is a transdiagnostic public health problem that is associated with negative effects on psychiatric outcomes and a large global economic burden. The development of novel treatments for emotion dysregulation that are effective across a wide range of psychiatric disorders is therefore an urgent need. A single session of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation has been shown to enhance emotion regulation in people with transdiagnostic emotion dysregulation. In these participants we are finding that induction of negative emotion is associated with hyperactivity in the insula, a key salience network node; utilization of emotion regulation skills is associated with downregulation of the insula; and functional connectivity strength between the insula and the dlPFC, a central executive network node, is positively correlated with emotion dysregulation severity. In a comparison group of non-clinical participants, utilization of emotion regulation skills is associated with increased functional connectivity strength between the insula and the mPFC, a default mode network node. These findings may reflect that dynamics between the salience and other large-scale prefrontal networks differ between emotionally dysregulated and non-clinical participants. Therefore, I hypothesize that cortico-insular connections are critically involved in emotion dysregulation and may be a mechanism for the therapeutic response to neuromodulatory perturbation. A connectomic approach will be employed to determine how cortico- insular connectivity is related to emotion dysregulation and affected by brain stimulation. Studies proposed may advance scientific knowledge about the role of functional and structural insular networks in transdiagnostic emotion dysregulation, leading to the refinement of individualized targets in neuromodulatory interventions. The expertise of Sponsor Dr. Kevin LaBar, Ph.D. in emotion regulation neuroscience and Co-Sponsor Dr. Andrada Neacsiu, Ph.D. in neuromodulatory interventions for emotion dysregulation will provide me with high-quality scientific training. The skills and training proposed in this application will allow me to establish the foundation for a physician-scientist career at the intersection of psychiatry and translational neuroscience.
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