Janine Heissler

Publications (3)18.57 Total impact

• Source

  Available from: Philipp Kanske

  Article: Neural correlates of emotion regulation deficits in remitted depression: the influence of regulation strategy, habitual regulation use, and emotional valence.

  Philipp Kanske, Janine Heissler, Sandra Schönfelder, Michèle Wessa
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  ABSTRACT: Regulating emotions through reappraisal has been shown to elicit abnormal neural activation patterns in currently depressed patients. It is, however, unclear if this deficit generalizes to other emotion regulation strategies, if it persists when patients recover, and if it is related to habitual use of reappraisal strategies. Therefore, we measured the neural responses to emotional images with functional magnetic resonance imaging in remitted patients with previous episodes of major depression and healthy controls. While viewing the images participants regulated the elicited emotions using either a reappraisal or a distraction strategy. Habitual reappraisal use was measured with the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire. Depressed patients showed a selective deficit in down-regulating amygdala responses to negative emotional stimuli using reappraisal. This down-regulation of amygdala activity was strongest in participants high in habitual reappraisal use. Activity in the regulating control-network including anterior cingulate and lateral orbitofrontal cortex was increased during both emotion regulation strategies. The findings in remitted patients with previous episodes of major depression suggest that altered emotion regulation is a trait-marker for depression. This interpretation is supported by the relation of habitual reappraisal use to amygdala down-regulation success.
  NeuroImage 07/2012; 61(3):686-93. · 5.89 Impact Factor
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  Available from: Philipp Kanske

  Article: Goal-directed behavior under emotional distraction is preserved by enhanced task-specific activation.

  Michèle Wessa, Janine Heissler, Sandra Schönfelder, Philipp Kanske
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  ABSTRACT: Despite the distracting effects of emotional stimuli on concurrent task performance, humans are able to uphold goal-directed behavior. Here, we investigated the hypothesis that this effect is due to the enhanced recruitment of task-specific neural resources. In a two-step functional magnetic resonance imaging study, we first localized those areas involved in mental arithmetics by contrasting arithmetic problems with a number detection task. The resulting activation maps were then used as masks in a second experiment that compared the effects of neutral and emotional distracter images on mental arithmetics. We found increased response times in the emotional distracter condition, accompanied by enhanced activation in task-specific areas, including superior parietal cortex, dorsolateral and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex. This activation increase correlated with larger behavioral impairment through emotional distraction. Similar error rates in both conditions indicate that cognitive task performance is preserved through enhanced recruitment of task-specific neural resources when emotional distracter stimuli are present.
  Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 02/2012; · 6.13 Impact Factor
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  Available from: Philipp Kanske

  Article: How to regulate emotion? Neural networks for reappraisal and distraction.

  Philipp Kanske, Janine Heissler, Sandra Schönfelder, André Bongers, Michèle Wessa
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  ABSTRACT: The regulation of emotion is vital for adaptive behavior in a social environment. Different strategies may be adopted to achieve successful emotion regulation, ranging from attentional control (e.g., distraction) to cognitive change (e.g., reappraisal). However, there is only scarce evidence comparing the different regulation strategies with respect to their neural mechanisms and their effects on emotional experience. We, therefore, directly compared reappraisal and distraction in a functional magnetic resonance imaging study with emotional pictures. In the distraction condition participants performed an arithmetic task, while they reinterpreted the emotional situation during reappraisal to downregulate emotional intensity. Both strategies were successful in reducing subjective emotional state ratings and lowered activity in the bilateral amygdala. Direct contrasts, however, showed a stronger decrease in amygdala activity for distraction when compared with reappraisal. While both strategies relied on common control areas in the medial and dorsolateral prefrontal and inferior parietal cortex, the orbitofrontal cortex was selectively activated for reappraisal. In contrast, the dorsal anterior cingulate and large clusters in the parietal cortex were active in the distraction condition. Functional connectivity patterns of the amygdala activation confirmed the roles of these specific activations for the 2 emotion regulation strategies.
  Cerebral Cortex 11/2010; 21(6):1379-88. · 6.54 Impact Factor