Neurophysiological Markers of Regulation Success in Everyday Life in Depression.

Abstract

Background: Self-regulation often is disrupted in depression and is characterized by negative affect and inflexible parasympathetic responses. Yet, our understanding of brain mechanisms of self-regulatory processes largely has been limited to laboratory contexts. Measuring individual differences in self-regulatory processes in everyday life - and their neural correlates - could inform our understanding of depression phenotypes and reveal novel intervention targets that impact everyday functioning.

Methods: In individuals with remitted major depressive disorder (rMDD) and healthy comparison participants (N=74), we measured two dimensions of regulation success in everyday life - perceived success with regulating affect, and physiological success (parasympathetic augmentation following regulation attempts) - and their neural correlates using an fMRI emotion regulation task.

Results: Perceptions of success were weakly associated with physiological success and had partially distinct neural correlates. Perceived success and physiological success in everyday life predicted reduced activity in brain regions involved in emotional salience while reacting to aversive stimuli in the scanner. During reappraisal in the scanner, greater perceived success in everyday life was dimensionally associated with more reappraisal-related activity in regions involved in cognitive control (including dorsolateral and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex); in contrast, physiological success predicted enhanced downregulation of salience network activity (amygdala, insula).

Conclusions: Results suggest linking psychophysiology with behavior in everyday life can provide a window into dissociable dimensions of self-regulatory functioning. Integrating ambulatory and brain-based metrics may elucidate self-regulatory phenotypes with distinct neurophysiological mechanisms and targets for intervention to impact functioning in daily life.