Cargando…

Anticipation of difficult tasks: neural correlates of negative emotions and emotion regulation

BACKGROUND: Difficult cognitive tasks are often associated with negative feelings. This can be already the case for the mere anticipation of having to do a difficult task. For the case of difficult math tasks, it was recently suggested that such a negative emotional response may be exclusive to high...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Klein, Elise, Bieck, Silke M., Bloechle, Johannes, Huber, Stefan, Bahnmueller, Julia, Willmes, Klaus, Moeller, Korbinian
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6421679/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30885230
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12993-019-0155-1
_version_ 1783404272647405568
author Klein, Elise
Bieck, Silke M.
Bloechle, Johannes
Huber, Stefan
Bahnmueller, Julia
Willmes, Klaus
Moeller, Korbinian
author_facet Klein, Elise
Bieck, Silke M.
Bloechle, Johannes
Huber, Stefan
Bahnmueller, Julia
Willmes, Klaus
Moeller, Korbinian
author_sort Klein, Elise
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Difficult cognitive tasks are often associated with negative feelings. This can be already the case for the mere anticipation of having to do a difficult task. For the case of difficult math tasks, it was recently suggested that such a negative emotional response may be exclusive to highly math-anxious individuals. However, it is also conceivable that negative emotional responses simply reflect that math is perceived as difficult. Here we investigated whether non-math-anxious individuals also experience negative emotional responses when anticipating to do difficult math tasks. METHODS: We compared brain activation following the presentation of a numerical cue indicating either difficult or easy upcoming proportion magnitude comparison tasks. RESULTS: Comparable to previous results for highly math-anxious individuals we observed a network associated with negative emotions to be activated in non-math-anxious individuals when facing cues indicating a difficult upcoming task. Importantly, however, math anxiety scores did not predict the neural response. Furthermore, we observed activation in areas associated with processes of cognitive control areas such as anterior cingulate cortex, which were suggested to play a key role in emotion regulation. CONCLUSION: Activation in the emotion processing network was observed when anticipating an upcoming difficult (math) task. However, this activation was not predicted by individual’ degree of math anxiety. Therefore, we suggest that negative emotional responses to difficult math tasks might be a rather common reaction not specific to math-anxious individuals. Whether or not this initial negative response impairs math performance, however, might depend on the ability to regulate those emotions effectively. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12993-019-0155-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-6421679
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2019
publisher BioMed Central
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-64216792019-03-28 Anticipation of difficult tasks: neural correlates of negative emotions and emotion regulation Klein, Elise Bieck, Silke M. Bloechle, Johannes Huber, Stefan Bahnmueller, Julia Willmes, Klaus Moeller, Korbinian Behav Brain Funct Research BACKGROUND: Difficult cognitive tasks are often associated with negative feelings. This can be already the case for the mere anticipation of having to do a difficult task. For the case of difficult math tasks, it was recently suggested that such a negative emotional response may be exclusive to highly math-anxious individuals. However, it is also conceivable that negative emotional responses simply reflect that math is perceived as difficult. Here we investigated whether non-math-anxious individuals also experience negative emotional responses when anticipating to do difficult math tasks. METHODS: We compared brain activation following the presentation of a numerical cue indicating either difficult or easy upcoming proportion magnitude comparison tasks. RESULTS: Comparable to previous results for highly math-anxious individuals we observed a network associated with negative emotions to be activated in non-math-anxious individuals when facing cues indicating a difficult upcoming task. Importantly, however, math anxiety scores did not predict the neural response. Furthermore, we observed activation in areas associated with processes of cognitive control areas such as anterior cingulate cortex, which were suggested to play a key role in emotion regulation. CONCLUSION: Activation in the emotion processing network was observed when anticipating an upcoming difficult (math) task. However, this activation was not predicted by individual’ degree of math anxiety. Therefore, we suggest that negative emotional responses to difficult math tasks might be a rather common reaction not specific to math-anxious individuals. Whether or not this initial negative response impairs math performance, however, might depend on the ability to regulate those emotions effectively. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12993-019-0155-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2019-03-18 /pmc/articles/PMC6421679/ /pubmed/30885230 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12993-019-0155-1 Text en © The Author(s) 2019 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research
Klein, Elise
Bieck, Silke M.
Bloechle, Johannes
Huber, Stefan
Bahnmueller, Julia
Willmes, Klaus
Moeller, Korbinian
Anticipation of difficult tasks: neural correlates of negative emotions and emotion regulation
title Anticipation of difficult tasks: neural correlates of negative emotions and emotion regulation
title_full Anticipation of difficult tasks: neural correlates of negative emotions and emotion regulation
title_fullStr Anticipation of difficult tasks: neural correlates of negative emotions and emotion regulation
title_full_unstemmed Anticipation of difficult tasks: neural correlates of negative emotions and emotion regulation
title_short Anticipation of difficult tasks: neural correlates of negative emotions and emotion regulation
title_sort anticipation of difficult tasks: neural correlates of negative emotions and emotion regulation
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6421679/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30885230
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12993-019-0155-1
work_keys_str_mv AT kleinelise anticipationofdifficulttasksneuralcorrelatesofnegativeemotionsandemotionregulation
AT biecksilkem anticipationofdifficulttasksneuralcorrelatesofnegativeemotionsandemotionregulation
AT bloechlejohannes anticipationofdifficulttasksneuralcorrelatesofnegativeemotionsandemotionregulation
AT huberstefan anticipationofdifficulttasksneuralcorrelatesofnegativeemotionsandemotionregulation
AT bahnmuellerjulia anticipationofdifficulttasksneuralcorrelatesofnegativeemotionsandemotionregulation
AT willmesklaus anticipationofdifficulttasksneuralcorrelatesofnegativeemotionsandemotionregulation
AT moellerkorbinian anticipationofdifficulttasksneuralcorrelatesofnegativeemotionsandemotionregulation