The Emotion-Regulation Benefits of Implicit Reappraisal in Clinical Depression: Behavioral and Electrophysiological Evidence
Jiajin Yuan1 · Yueyao Zhang2 · Yanli Zhao3 · Kexiang Gao2 · Shuping Tan3 · Dandan Zhang1,4,51 Institute of Brain and Psychological Sciences, Sichuan Normal University, Chengdu 610066, China
2 School of Psychology, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China
3 Psychiatry Research Center, Beijing Huilongguan Hospital, Beijing 100096, China
4 Shenzhen-Hong Kong Institute of Brain Science, Shenzhen 518060, China
5 Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Center, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China
Abstract
Major depressive disorder (MDD) is characterized by emotion dysregulation. Whether implicit emotion regulation can compensate for this deficit remains unknown. In this study, we recruited 159 subjects who were healthy controls, had subclinical depression, or had MDD, and examined them under baseline, implicit, and explicit reappraisal conditions. Explicit reappraisal led to the most negative feelings and the largest parietal late positive potential (parietal LPP, an index of emotion intensity) in the MDD group compared to the other two groups; the group difference was absent under the other two conditions. MDD patients showed larger regulatory effects in the LPP during implicit than explicit reappraisal, whereas healthy controls showed a reversed pattern. Furthermore, the frontal P3, an index of voluntary cognitive control, showed larger amplitudes in explicit reappraisal compared to baseline in the healthy and subclinical groups, but not in the MDD group, while implicit reappraisal did not increase P3 across groups. These findings suggest that implicit reappraisal is beneficial for clinical depression.
Keywords
Depression; Implicit emotion regulation; Reappraisal; Late positive potential
