title: Behavioural and neural correlates of self-focused emotion regulation in social anxiety disorder.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  In healthy individuals, voluntary modification of self-relevance has proven effective in regulating subjective emotional experience as well as physiologic responses evoked by emotive stimuli. As social anxiety disorder (SAD) is characterized by both altered emotional and self-related processing, we tested if emotion regulation through self-focused reappraisal is effective in individuals with SAD.
  
  
  METHODS
  While undergoing 3 T functional magnetic resonance imaging, individuals with SAD and matched healthy controls either passively viewed neutral and aversive pictures or actively increased or decreased their negative emotional experience through the modification of self-relevance or personal distance to aversive pictures. Participants rated all pictures with regard to the intensity of elicited emotions and self-relatedness.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We included 21 individuals with SAD and 23 controls in our study. Individuals with SAD reported significantly stronger emotional intensity across conditions and showed a nonsignificant tendency to judge pictures as more self-related than controls. Compared with controls, individuals with SAD showed an overactivation in bilateral temporoparietal regions and in the posterior midcingulate cortex during the passive viewing of aversive compared with neutral pictures. During instructed emotion regulation, activation patterns normalized and no significant group differences were detected.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  As no positive pictures were presented, results might be limited to the regulation of negative emotion.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  During passive viewing of aversive images, individuals with SAD showed evidence of neural hyperreactivity that may be interpreted as increased bodily self-consciousness and heightened perspective-taking. During voluntary increase and decrease of negative emotional intensity, group differences disappeared, suggesting self-focused reappraisal as a successful emotion regulation strategy for individuals with SAD.
authors.affiliation: Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Department of Psychiatry &Psychotherapy, Division of Mind and Brain Research, Berlin Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Department of Neurology, Leipzig Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Department of Psychology, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gaebler
authors.affiliation: Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Department of Psychiatry & Psychotherapy, Division of Mind and Brain Research, Berlin Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, Otto-von-Guericke-University, Magdeburg.
authors.forename: Judith K
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Daniels
authors.affiliation: Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Department of Psychiatry & Psychotherapy, Division of Mind and Brain Research, Berlin Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Department of Psychology, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Jan-Peter
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Lamke
authors.affiliation: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Department of Psychology, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Fydrich
authors.affiliation: Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Department of Psychiatry & Psychotherapy, Division of Mind and Brain Research, Berlin.
authors.forename: Henrik
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Walter
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D012649:Self Concept; D012919:Social Behavior; D013850:Thinking / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*