Effects of emotional maltreatment on semantic network activity during cognitive reappraisal

Maltreatment experiences alter brain development associated with emotion processing, and dysregulation of emotion may trigger mental health problems in maltreated people. However, studies revealing alterations in brain networks during cognitive reappraisal in victims of maltreatment are strikingly insufficient. In this study, 27 healthy subjects were recruited. The maltreatment experiences and positive reappraisal abilities were measured using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-Short Form (CTQ-SF) and Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ), respectively. A cognitive reappraisal task using the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) was designed for functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments. Cognitive reappraisal induced more activities in the bilateral inferior parietal lobes and bilateral middle temporal gyri compared to the condition of “look” (false discovery rate (FDR) corrected p