Date of Award
Spring 2-4-2020
Degree Name
Master of Arts (AM/MA)
Degree Type
Thesis
Abstract
Poverty and maltreatment predict deficits in emotion regulation (ER). Effective cognitive ER is supported by (1) cognitive processes implicated in generating and implementing cognitive reappraisal, supported by activation in brain regions involved in cognitive control (e.g., frontal, insular and parietal cortices) and, (2) emotional recognition and response, involving identification, encoding, and maintenance of emotional states and related variation in brain activity of regions involved in emotional reactivity (i.e., amygdala). Poverty is associated with deficits in cognitive control, and maltreatment with deficits in emotion identification and reactivity. Our goal was to identify dissociable emotional and cognitive pathways to ER deficits from poverty and maltreatment. Measures of cognitive ability, emotional identification, sensitivity, and responsivity, ER, and fMRI data during a sadness ER task were examined from a prospective longitudinal study of youth at risk for depression (n=149). Both cognitive ability and left anterior insula activity during a sadness reappraisal task additively mediated the relationship between poverty and ER. Emotional identification, sensitivity, and responsivity did not mediate the relationship of maltreatment to ER. Findings support a cognitive pathway to ER deficits from poverty and underscore the importance of dissociating mechanisms contributing to ER impairments associated with early childhood exposures.
Language
English (en)
Chair and Committee
Deanna M Barch
Committee Members
Tammy English, Lori Markson
Recommended Citation
Elsayed, Nourhan M., "Evidence for Dissociable Cognitive and Neural Pathways from Poverty versus Maltreatment to Deficits in Emotion Regulation" (2020). Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 2031.
https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/art_sci_etds/2031