What neuroscience research tells us about emotion regulation

Everyday people are continuously exposed to situations that can easily trigger spontaneous emotional and behavioral responses. To maintain control while facing potential urges, human beings must develop some kinds of self-regulating strategies. Although with the term self-regulation we refer to a very broad phenomenon in the present thesis I will focus on emotion regulation. In the first chapter of my thesis, I will describe the cognitive models of emotion regulation. To better understand the process of emotion and its regulation, the basic knowledge about self-regulation will be also provided. In the next section, I will focus more on emotions themselves, describing how they can be generated and regulated, based on the commonly known models. Subsequently, I will present some differences of strategies use to regulate emotion, depending on the age or gender of the individuals. In the second chapter I will briefly describe methods that neuroscience research uses to investigate brain regions underlying emotion regulation process, mainly (lesion, neurostimulation and neuroimaging techniques). Recent studies have also shown the significant role of cerebellum in emotional process, that is why at the end of this chapter I will provide some evidence supporting this idea. Unfortunately, failures in emotion regulation are common and can arise from a variety of circumstances. Therefore, in the third chapter, I will focus more on emotion regulation fails, based on the example of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). In addition, I will provide some evidence about neuroanatomical correlates involved and from neurobiological point of view. In addition I will dedicate one section to speculative role of cerebellum in OCD. The last chapter consists of conclusions about all the aspect brought in the thesis and also includes the future direction, where we should go next, starting from knowledge obtained already. Considering the current world situation where COVID-19 pandemic had a huge impact on all the aspect of our life, I would like to also provide some information how excessive health precautions and isolation influence OCD symptoms severity. The aim of the present dissertation is to provide evidence about emotion regulation which is prominent issue concerning people’s well-being