The Biological Correlates of Emotion Dysregulation in Adolescents

Abstract

Background: Emotion regulation is the ability to modulate behavioural responses to emotion-inducing stimuli in a goal directed manner. When emotion regulation processes become maladaptive, it results in emotion dysregulation (ED). ED is present in 25-45% of children with psychiatric disorders and strongly predicts poor clinical outcomes. ED presents as elevations in comorbid internalizing and externalizing symptoms. The relative contributions of these heterotypic comorbidities to ED in a particular patient is unclear. Clinicians must prioritize treatment of either domain of symptoms without empirical evidence. Objective measures of ED would assist in guiding treatment decisions. This thesis aimed to explore the biological correlates of ED with a focus on associations between ED and electroencephalographic (EEG) asymmetry. A secondary aim was to explore whether these relationships differed in populations with mood versus behavioural disorders. Methods: A systematic review was conducted to qualitatively evaluate present literature on ED and its biological correlates. The relationship between frontal and parietal EEG asymmetry and ED, measured by the child behaviour checklist – dysregulation profile, was assessed in a secondary analysis of the D-Psypher dataset with a transdiagnostic sample of 88 adolescents with varying severity of psychopathology and risk for ED. Relationships were assessed in the whole sample, and according to the following groups: depression only, depression comorbid with a behavioural disorder, and controls. Results: The systematic review included 12 studies and found ED-related differences in neural, cardiac, and genetic measures. The second study found associations between right parietal EEG asymmetry and ED in the whole sample and in youth with depression only. In youth with comorbid depression, ED was associated with left frontal asymmetry. Conclusion: This thesis outlines several findings related to the biological correlates of ED in adolescents. Understanding how these correlates differ in various disorder categories has important implications for the measurement and treatment of ED.