Positive Emotion Regulation in the Hippocampus

Mood disorders affect millions of people every year and can appear at nearly any point in a person’s lifespan. Cases of major depressive disorder and anxiety disorder in particular saw a large uptake during the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, roughly two-thirds of patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder do not receive sufficient treatment through medication and therapy (Zhu). Living with mental health disorders can create obstacles in one’s social, personal, and professional life that would not otherwise be there. One recent area of research into the treatment of mood disorders has focused on emotion regulation.

In her talk, Dr. Rebecca Silton, professor in the psychology department at Loyola University Chicago, discussed the role of positive emotion regulation in the treatment of depressive symptoms and the lack of exploration in this field. Dr. Silton presented savoring strategies as being a common mechanism for the upregulation of positive emotions. Savoring was defined as “the capacity ‘to attend to, appreciate, and enhance the positive experience in one’s life’” (Silton et al.). Savoring occurs as the anticipation of a future positive event, focusing on a present positive event, or reminiscing of a past positive experience. While there have been some resources devoted to positive psychology strategies and mindfulness to improve positive emotion regulation and savoring, Dr. Silton expressed a need for further research into the neurophysiological underpinnings of positive emotion regulation.

A study conducted by Yashuo Zhu et al. used real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging neurofeedback to train emotion regulation in the hippocampus of health adults. During training, the participants in the experimental group were asked to recall a positive autobiographical memory, a type of savoring that involves reminiscing about the past. After four sessions of neurofeedback training, participants in the savoring group showed increased hippocampal activity as well as increased hippocampus-amygdala connectivity. The research team also found that the anterior temporal lobe and parahippocampal gyrus were activated during neurofeedback training.

While the Zhu et al. study is a step in the right direction, further research is needed into positive emotion regulation as a treatment for mood disorders. Zhu et al. only explored one type of savoring (reminiscing) in their study. Similar studies testing whether the results replicate to savoring that anticipates future positive events and focusing on a present, positive event would be extremely beneficial to the field. Furthermore, Dr. Silton discussed ten types of savoring strategies including counting blessings and sharing with others that merit further research as to how these strategies affect hippocampal activation. Furthermore, the activation of additional brain regions in response to different savoring types and strategies should be more specifically studied, such as the amygdala. Another step research in the area of positive emotion regulation can take is to look into whether the increased hippocampal activation found in the Zhu et al. study carries over to populations diagnosed with mood disorders like major depressive disorder.

References:

    Silton, R. L., Kahrilas, I. J., Skymba, H. V., Smith, J., Bryant, F. B., & Heller, W. (2020). Regulating positive emotions: Implications for promoting well-being in individuals with depression. Emotion, 20(1), 93–97. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000675

Zhu, Y., Gao, H., Tong, L., Li, Z., Wang, L., Zhang, C., Yang, Q., & Yan, B. (2019). Emotion Regulation of Hippocampus Using Real-Time fMRI Neurofeedback in Healthy Human. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 13, 242. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2019.00242