New Targeted Brain Stimulation Dulls Social Pain

In people with psychiatric disorders, pairing brain stimulation with an emotion management technique blunts negative emotions and improves emotional regulation, stated new research recently published in JNeurosci.

Managing people's emotions is a crucial component to navigating challenging situations. People with psychiatric disorders like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression struggle to do this.

‘The new targeted brain stimulation may improve emotional regulation for people with psychiatric disorders.’

Brain Regulation in Psychiatric Disorders

In people with PTSD and depression, the brain regulates emotions through the dorsolateral (DLPFC) and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC). Harnessing the independent, separate roles of these brain regions may offer a novel treatment for psychiatric disorders' emotional symptoms.

Brain Stimulation Study

Zhao et al. enhanced healthy adults' brain activity using transcranial magnetic stimulation while viewing social pain images. The participants rated their negative emotions just after viewing the picture, after distracting themselves, or after coming up with a positive image interpretation (reappraisal).

Stimulating either area of the prefrontal cortex reduced negative emotions, with effects lasting up to an hour.

Pairing DLPFC stimulation with the distraction strategy and VLPFC stimulation with the reappraisal strategy decreased negative emotions even more.

The study findings suggest combining targeted brain stimulation with the appropriate regulation strategy could improve psychiatric disorders' emotional responses.

Source: Medindia