Brain And Emotions: Structure Reveals Ability To Regulate Feelings

It's sort of funny how the heart is used to discuss our regulation of emotion, when we really have our brains to thank.

New findings conducted by researchers at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden examined the brains of individuals who are unable to properly regulate their emotions, which can have a serious impact on work, family and social life. For many, this emotional instability may be the result of a borderline personality disorder or an antisocial personality disorder.

For this particular study, researchers examined 87 healthy subjects who were given a clinical questionnaire and asked to rate their ability to control emotions during their everyday lives. The brains of the subjects were then scanned with an MRI, in which scientists discovered that an area in the lower frontal lobe, or the so-called orbitofrontal cortex, exhibited smaller volumes in individuals who had some difficulties regulating emotions. Furthermore, the greater the problems, the smaller the volume size detected was.

This same area is also known to hold a smaller volume in patients with borderline personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder, according to researchers. Similar findings also reveal that in other areas of the brain, it is known for being an important part of emotional regulation.

"The results support the idea that there is a continuum in our ability to regulate emotions, and if you are at the extreme end of the spectrum, you are likely to have problems with functioning in society and this leads to a psychiatric diagnosis," says Associate Professor Predrag Petrovic, first author of the study and researcher at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, in a news release. "According to this idea, such disorders should not be seen as categorical, that you either have the condition or not. It should rather be seen as an extreme variant in the normal variability of the population."

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