The Impact Of Childhood Emotional Neglect On Emotion Regulation In Early Adulthood And Its Neural Basi

With the in-depth investigation of the relationship between early experiences and physical and mental health in psychological science,many studies have confirmed that childhood trauma may have lasting adverse effects on multiple aspects of individual development.Childhood emotional neglect(CEN)is one common subtype of childhood trauma with a relatively high incidence.It refers explicitly to "the caregivers fail to meet juveniles’ needs for love and attention,lack or refuse to provide the necessary empathic response,psychological comfort and emotional communication to juveniles.”Current studies have found that childhood emotional neglect significantly impacts the impairment of adulthood’s emotion regulation ability.However,these studies still have many limitations,such as the selection of subjects,and research methods,particularly,no study involving subjects in early adulthood.Therefore,this study selected two groups of healthy college students:one with solitary childhood emotional neglect experience and the other without any childhood trauma experience(the neglect group and the control group,the same below)as the research objects by combining a questionnaire survey and clinical symptom interview with psychiatrists.Using questionnaire analysis of daily emotion regulation behaviors,behavioral experiments of situational perceiving and regulating negative emotion,and resting-state and task-state functional magnetic resonance imaging,we systematically investigated the behavioral changes and underlying neural basis of solitary childhood emotional neglect experience on early adults’ emotion regulation ability.In the first sub study,a large-scale online survey including the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire(CTQ),the Emotional Regulation Questionnaire(ERQ),the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale(DERS)was used to investigate the relationship between childhood emotional neglect experience,daily emotion regulation strategies and difficulties in emotion regulation in college students.On this basis,according to the diagnostic criteria for subtypes of childhood trauma and Axis I psychiatric disorders,the potential subjects in the online survey were screened and grouped.The differences between the extremely high-value healthy group(the neglect group)and the extremely low-value healthy group(the control group)in the daily emotion regulation strategies and difficulties in emotion regulation were further investigated.The effects of childhood emotional neglect on the daily emotion regulation strategies and difficulties in emotion regulation of college students were tested interactively.The results of the large-sample questionnaire showed that,after controlling all demographic variables and other traumas except emotional neglect,the CEN score was significantly negatively correlated with the reappraisal score of the ERQ(ERQ-Reappraisal)and could significantly negatively predict its changes.There was no significant correlation between the CEN score and the suppression score of the ERQ(ERQ-Suppression).The CEN score was positively correlated with the total score of the DERS(DERS-Total)and could positively predict its change.The mediating analysis showed that the ERQ-Reappraisal score partially mediated the effect of the CEN score on the DERS-Total score.The results of the inter-group comparison showed that the ERQ-Reappraisal score in the neglect group was significantly lower than in the control group.There was no significant difference in the ERQ-Suppression score between the two groups.The DERS-Total score in the neglect group was significantly higher than in the control group.In a cross-group analysis controlling demographic variables and other childhood traumas,the ERQ-Reappraisal score was significantly negatively correlated with the DERS-Total score and could significantly negatively predict its change.These results suggest that solitary childhood emotional neglect experience leads to more severe difficulties in emotion regulation in healthy college students,which may be achieved through a more impaired daily tendency to use reappraisal strategies.In the second substudy,resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging(rs-fMRI)was used to systematically investigate the effects of solitary childhood emotional neglect on the brain function of college students in a resting state(brain local functional activity,brain functional connection,brain network topology attributes).Then,statistical correlation analysis was used to investigate the possible relationship between the above changes in brain function,emotion regulation strategy preference and emotion regulation ability caused by solitary childhood emotional neglect.The analysis of regional brain functional activities showed that the regional homogeneity(ReHo)of the left medial superior frontal gyrus in the neglect group was significantly enhanced and negatively correlated with the ERQ-Reappraisal score in the cross-group analysis.The amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation(ALFF)of the left orbitofrontal middle gyrus was significantly enhanced and negatively correlated with the ERQ-Reappraisal score in the cross-group analysis.At the same time,the ALFF of the left thalamus(BN241)decreased significantly.Moreover,it was significantly positively correlated with the ERQ-Reappraisal score and negatively correlated with the DERS-Total score in the cross-group analysis.The ERQ-Reappraisal score partially mediated the effect of the ALFF of BN241 on the DERS-Total score.The analysis of functional brain connection showed that functional connections between multiple subregions of the right thalamus(BN232,BN242,BN244,BN246)and other regions in the whole brain were significantly enhanced.Moreover,many of them were significantly negatively correlated with the ERQ-Reappraisal score(BN242 and right middle temporal gyrus,BN242 and left inferior temporal gyrus,BN246 and right supplementary motor area)or positively correlated with the DERS-Total score(BN242 and right inferior occipital gyrus,BN246 and left middle occipital gyrus)in cross-group analysis.In particular,the functional connection between the BN244 subregion and the right dorsolateral superior frontalis gyrus was significantly negatively correlated with the ERQ-Reappraisal score and positively correlated with the DERS-Total score.The ERQ-Reappraisal score completely mediated the effect of the functional connection of BN244 on the DERS-Total score.The analysis of local topological attributes of the functional brain network showed that the betweenness(b)of the left caudate nucleus was significantly larger in the neglect group and negatively correlated with the ERQ-Reappraisal score in cross-group analysis.The degree(k)of the left supplementary motor area increased significantly in the neglect group and negatively correlated with the ERQ-Reappraisal score in cross-group analysis.However,the degree of the left inferior temporal gyrus decreased significantly and positively correlated with the ERQ-Reappraisal score.In particular,the degree of the right thalamus subregion(BN240)also increased significantly.In the cross-group analysis,it was significantly negatively correlated with the ERQ-Reappraisal score and positively correlated with the DERS-Total score.The ERQ-Reappraisal score partially mediated the effect of the degree of BN240 on the DERS-Total score.The nodal efficiency(Enoda1)of the left supplementary motor area and the right thalamus subregion(BN244)increased significantly in the neglect group.They were all significantly negatively correlated with the ERQ-Reappraisal score in cross-group analysis.Still,only the latter could substantially negatively predict the change of the ERQ-Reappraisal score.The analysis of global topology attributes of functional brain network found no significant difference between the two groups.These results suggest that healthy college students with solitary childhood emotional neglect experience changes in multiple indicators of resting brain functional activity(especially those related to the thalamus).These changes may be closely associated with the daily tendency to use reappraisal strategies and the overall difficulties in emotion regulation.In the third substudy,the experimental paradigm of emotion regulation behavior and task-state functional magnetic resonance imaging(ts-fMRI)were used to compare the differences in subjective feelings,brain functional activity and brain functional connection of the two groups of healthy college students with solitary childhood emotional neglect experience and without any childhood trauma experience after perceiving negative emotion and using "reappraisal" and"suppression" to regulating negative emotion.Then,statistical correlation analysis was used to investigate the relationship between the above subjective feelings and the corresponding changes in brain functional activity and brain functional connection induced by childhood emotional neglect.The behavioral experiment results showed no significant difference in the subjective feelings of perceiving negative emotion and using "suppression" to regulate negative emotion between the two groups.However,the subjective feelings of the neglect group were more negative when using reappraisal strategies to regulate negative emotion.In addition,cross-group correlation analysis showed that individuals’ subjective feelings when using reappraisal strategies to regulate negative emotion were significantly positively correlated with the ERQ-Reappraisal score and could significantly positively predict the latter’s change.The ts-fMRI analysis showed that the neglect group’s eight brain regions,including the left medial superior frontal gyrus,were more activated when regulating negative emotion.Moreover,the functional connection between the left medial superior frontal gyrus and right inferior occipital gyrus was weakened,regulating negative emotion with reappraisal strategies.The results of cross-group correlation analysis between brain and behavior showed that,when regulating negative emotion with reappraisal strategies,the activation signal of the left medial superior frontal gyrus was significantly negatively correlated with the subjective feelings and could significantly negatively predict the latter’s changes.The above results suggest that healthy college students with solitary childhood emotional neglect experience have more negative subjective feelings when using reappraisal strategies to regulate negative emotion.These are closely related to the changes in the functional activity of the left medial superior frontal gyrus and the functional connection between the left medial superior frontal gyrus and the right inferior occipital gyrus.In conclusion,the results of this study support the idea that childhood emotional neglect experience may affect early adults’ emotion regulation ability in adulthood.For the first time,this study comprehensively reveals the behavioral changes and underlying neural mechanisms of solitary childhood emotional neglect experience on emotion regulation in adulthood.In terms of behavior,college students with solitary childhood emotional neglect experience had significant difficulties in emotion regulation and used fewer reappraisal strategies in daily life.The latter could significantly negatively predict the former’s change.In addition,the subjective feelings of college students with solitary childhood emotional neglect when using reappraisal strategies to regulate negative emotion situationally are more negative.They could significantly predict the daily tendency to use reappraisal strategies.In terms of neural mechanism,college students with solitary childhood emotional neglect experience had multiple changes in thalamic resting-state functional activities,and the daily tendency to use reappraisal strategies often played mediating roles in the effects of the thalamic functional activities on difficulties in emotion regulation.The activities and functional connections of multiple brain regions of college students with solitary childhood emotional neglect changed when they regulated negative emotion.Especially when they used reappraisal strategies to regulate negative emotion,the activity of the left medial superior frontal gyrus and the functional connection between the left medial superior frontal gyrus and the right inferior occipital gyrus enhanced,which could respectively predict the subjective feelings of individuals using reappraisal strategies to regulate negative emotion situationally.These results provide a theoretical basis for the effects of solitary childhood emotional neglect on early adults’emotion regulation.It also provides valuable suggestions and references for preventing and treating physical and mental illness related to childhood emotional neglect.