Event overview
Goldsmiths Psychology Department Seminar Series
Abstract
Adolescence is a key time for the emergence of internalising and externalising psychopathologies associated with poor emotion regulation, including depression, anxiety and antisocial behaviour. What are the behavioural and neural processes that render some adolescents more vulnerable to developing psychopathology than others? I will present behavioural and neuroimaging data focusing on the ability to regulate emotional responses, both through automatic processing of emotional cues, and deliberate use of regulatory strategies. In particular I will focus on those adolescents with a profile of reactive aggression, i.e. aggression in response to threat, frustration or provocation, and will show that this group is characterised by a profile of high amygdala reactivity to threat, increased ‘capture’ by emotional stimuli, and a reduced ability to use deliberate strategies to downregulate emotional response. Thus, these individuals have difficulty in terms of both ‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’ approaches to managing emotions, and may benefit from interventions specifically targeting these skills.
Biography
Dr Sebastian is a Reader in the Department of Psychology at Royal Holloway University of London. She studied Experimental Psychology (BA) and Neuroscience (MSc) at the University of Oxford before completing doctoral and postdoctoral work in developmental cognitive neuroscience at University College London. Her research focuses on the development of emotional processing in typically developing adolescents and in adolescents with antisocial behaviour.
Dates & times
Date | Time | Add to calendar |
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16 Nov 2017 | 4:00pm - 5:00pm |
Accessibility
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