REGULATION OF EMOTIONS AND THE ADOLESCENT BRAIN

Lori Hilt, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Lawrence University, discussed how developmentally teenagers are much stronger than children physically and emotionally but yet the rate of disability and mortality is 200% higher than it is for children. Teenagers have difficulty managing emotions which can lead to suicide and risky behaviors. Emotion regulation is managing or modulating emotions. We often think of this in terms of suppressing negative emotions so that we can deal with the situation at hand. We regulate our emotions by controlling attention, controlling thoughts, suppressing/inhibiting thoughts or reappraisal. The center of our emotions is located in the front part of the brain or the prefrontal cortex. We now know that the brain is extremely plastic, the adult brain can grow new neurons, neurogensis takes place in the hippocampus and the brain continues to develop in the second decade in life. No two neurons touch in the brain – there is space between them. At birth, there is a lot of space between the neurons so that the brain is ready to soak up information and learn new things. By the age of 6, we have a densely packed brain. At 14, it is already thinning out. It is thought that the brain has several pruning periods throughout development (at age 5, 10 and 14) that gets rid of unneeded connections. This is why it is important that kids learn and are exposed to new things so they don’t lose the plasticity in the brain to learn those things at the same level. One of the manifestations of emotion regulation difficulty that they see in adolescence is depression. After the age of 15, the rate of depression increases. Starting at age 18, the rate of depression in women is 1 out of 4 and that stays the same throughout the lifespan. In men, the rate is 12%. One of the areas of research that Prof. Hilt is studying is rumination where people try to manage their negative emotions by thinking about them a lot. People who ruminate are more at risk of becoming depressed. It is thought that rumination takes place in the hippocampus (learning and memory center that keeps things at the front of our minds). People who are depressed have a smaller hippocampus than people who are not depressed. Depression is associated with neurodeath and a lack of neurogensis. Prof. Hilt studied to see if there was a genetic cause of rumination. She looked at the gene that encodes a chemical called brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) which is important for neurogensis, plasticity and executive functioning/problem solving. The results of the study indicated that the BDNF gene predicted rumination and symptoms of depression. Another study that Prof. Hilt conducted induced rumination, randomly assigned a brief intervention and measured rumination in real time throughout the study. She found that 2 strategies were effective in controlling attention: mindfulness mediation and distraction (thinking about things outside the study and notice the positive stimuli). We need to help adolescence by teaching them emotion regulation skills to better control their attention. People are researching adolescent risk taking. Adolescents know better but still engage in risky behavior. Some factors include peer influence and brain development. Adolescents can perform the go task (go / no go tasks that measures inhibition) but have difficulty with the no go task as compared to children and adults. Other examples of emotion regulation difficulties in adolescence include: eating disorders, anxiety disorders, substance abuse and non-suicidal self injury. The adolescent brain may be to blame since it is more sensitive to reward and the hippocampus structure and prefrontal cortex are changing. Emotion regulation during adolescence may be really challenging since emotions may be high, inhibitory control is not fully developed, sensitive reward system and stress/peers. We can help by supporting social and emotional learning efforts in schools and by providing support for teens to engage in exercise, meditation, pay attention to positive stimuli and an enriching environment (i.e. music and art).