PROJECT SUMMARY
Many older adults experience positive emotional changes as they age, including fewer negative emotions,
greater mood stability, and greater ease regulating feelings. However, research suggests that these positive
changes may occur in part because older adults’ autonomic nervous systems are less reactive to emotional
stimuli (i.e., autonomic reactivity) and because older adults find it increasingly hard to pick up on internal bodily
reactions in the first place (i.e., interoception). These embodied changes in turn make it easier for older adults
to prioritize neutral and positive experiences and regulate negative feelings. But it remains unclear why older
adults experience these changes in autonomic reactivity and interoception in the first place. The present
project tests the hypothesis that age-related changes in the brain’s representation of autonomic nervous
system activity and interoception may actually help explain the differences between older vs. younger adults’
emotional experiences and regulation. Two studies address this possibility. Study 1 uses the increased
statistical power of meta-analysis to summarize all functional neuroimaging literature on older adult emotion
and test for age differences in neural activation and connectivity in regions supporting autonomic reactivity and
interoception. In Study 2, older and younger adults complete a laboratory visit and functional magnetic
resonance imaging (fMRI) visit. During the lab visit, emotion is manipulated via a stress induction to measure
age differences in autonomic reactivity and interoception. In the fMRI scanner, emotion is manipulated via an
image-based emotion induction to assess age differences in brain activation and connectivity. In turn,
autonomic reactivity, interoception, and measured neural activations and connectivity are correlated and used
to predict differences in older vs. younger adults’ emotional experiences and ability to regulate their feelings.
Expected results are that older adults will exhibit decreased neural activity and connectivity in the brain regions
involved in autonomic reactivity and interoception (i.e., the core limbic and paralimbic networks) relative to
young adults, and that these neural differences will explain older adults’ declines in autonomic reactivity and
interoception, as well as reduced negative emotions and easier emotion regulation during the emotion
inductions. These studies are the first to examine age-related differences in how older adults’ brains represent
the embodied aspects of emotion. Ultimately, this project can offer crucial insights into aging health and
wellbeing, delineating further biological pathways by which emotions contribute to physical and mental health
across the lifespan.