Study finds brain system for emotional self-control
Bessma Dabaan - Hour 1
Different brain areas are activated when we choose to suppress an emotion, compared to when we are instructed to inhibit an emotion, according a new study from the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Ghent University.
A group of fifteen healthy women were put to test, where in the first experiment they were showed frightening or unpleasing photos. They were given the choice to feel what emotions they had. The researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to scan their brains.
Then they were put under another test, this time they were instructed to feel a specific emotion. Two different parts of the brain were activated in the experiment. "This result shows that emotional self-control involves a quite different brain system from simply being told how to respond emotionally," said lead author Dr Simone Kuhn (Ghent University).
NOS Themes:
Science in collaborative
Science is based on experiment
This makes sense since one is a voluntary action and the other is involuntary. Professor Patrick Haggard of the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience talked about this being a potential target for therapies. He said,"The ability to manage one's own emotions is affected in many mental health conditions, so identifying this mechanism opens interesting possiblities for future research."
ReplyDeletehttp://esciencenews.com/articles/2013/05/11/study.finds.brain.system.emotional.self.control