The Cognitive Neural Mechanism Of Implicit Emotion Regulation Intervenes Fear Extinction In Anxious Adolescents

The fear extinction in adolescence is seen as a key mechanism to suppress anxiety,and this effect of inhibition can effectively mitigate the effects of adult anxiety as well as other psychological problems.Therefore,in-depth exploration of the extinction mechanism of fear in adolescence will contribute to better understand the pathogenesis of adolescent anxiety disorders and provide a reference for effective treatment.At the same time,previous studies have found that after anxious individuals use the emotion regulation strategy of cognitive reappraisal,their negative emotional experience will be reduced and related physiological responses will be weakened even when the anxiety stimulus is presented again.However,the specific mechanism of emotion regulation in relieving anxiety disorders is still unclear,and few studies have explored the core mechanism of fear extinction combined with emotion regulation in anxiety disorders.In order to fill the gaps in this field,the following exploratory studies were carried out.Firstly,functional near-infrared spectroscopy was used to explore the effect of implicit emotion regulation on fear extinction in anxious adolescents and its cognitive neural mechanism.Secondly,behavioral research methods were used to explore the effects of different implicit emotion regulation strategies(cognitive reappraisal and acceptance)on fear extinction in anxious adolescents.Experiment Ⅰ explored the effects of implicit emotion regulation on fear extinction in anxious adolescents and its cognitive neural mechanisms.Behavioral results showed that there was no significant difference in the subjective expectation rating of the conditioned stimulus between the two groups during the acquisition phase,and all subjects successfully acquired fear,and the scores of CS+ were significantly higher than those of CS-.In the fear extinction stage,both groups successfully fade away the fear.The score for CS+ gradually decreased with the number of trials until it was not significantly different from the score for CS-.According to the time course analysis,in the early stage of fear extinction,the subjective expectation score of the intervention group was significantly higher than that of the control group.There was no significant difference between the two groups in the late stage of fear extinction.Fear extinction was significantly faster in the intervention group than in the control group.The f NIRS results showed that the activation of the medial prefrontal cortex in the intervention group was significantly higher than that in the control group during the word matching and extinction phases.Experiment Ⅱ examined the effects of different implicit emotion regulation strategies on fear extinction in anxious adolescents.The results showed that all subjects successfully acquired fear,and the scores of CS+ were significantly higher than those of CS-.In the extinction stage,the two emotion regulation strategies were successfully fade away the fear.The score for CS+ gradually decreased with the number of trials until it was not significantly different from the score for CS-.According to the time course analysis,in the early stage of fear extinction,the subjective expectation score of implicit cognitive reappraisal was significantly lower than that of implicit acceptance.There was no significant difference between the two groups in the late stage of fear extinction.There is no significant difference in the speed of fear extinction between implicit and implicit reappraisal strategy and implicit acceptance strategy,and both of them can promote fear extinction.The results of this study show that implicit emotion regulation can promote fear extinction in anxious adolescents,and the activation of medial prefrontal cortex is significant in the process of implicit emotion regulation and fear extinction.Implicit cognitive reappraisal and implicit acceptance can both promote fear extinction in anxious adolescents,and there is no significant difference in the effect of promoting fear extinction in anxious adolescents.