Impulsive Responses to Positive and Negative Emotions: Parallel Neurocognitive Correlates and their Implications

• Published in: Biological psychiatry (1969) Vol. 87; no. 4; pp. 338 - 349
• Main Authors: Johnson, Sheri L, Elliott, Matthew V, Carver, Charles S
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 15.02.2020
• Subjects: Arousal; Cognition; Emotion; Emotions; Humans; Imaging; Impulsive Behavior; Impulsivity; Prefrontal Cortex; Psychiatric/Mental Health; Psychopathology; Urgency; impulsivity; emotion; cognition; urgency; psychopathology; imaging; Impulsivity; Cognition; Emotion; Psychopathology; Urgency; Imaging
• ISSN: 0006-3223; 1873-2402
• DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2019.08.018

AbstractTheory about the conceptual basis of psychiatric disorders has long emphasized negative emotionality. More recent ideas emphasize roles for positive emotionality and impulsivity as well. This article examines impulsive responses to positive and negative emotions, which have been labelled as urgency. Urgency is conceptually and empirically distinct from other forms of impulsivity. A large body of work indicates that Urgency is more robustly related to psychopathology than are other forms of impulsivity. Researchers have considered four neurocognitive models of urgency: excessive emotion generation, poor emotion regulation, risky decision-making, and poor cognitive control. Little evidence supports emotion generation or risky decision-making as the core issues driving urgency. Rather, urgency appears related to dysfunction in key hubs implicated in the integration of cognitive control and emotion regulation (e.g., the orbitofrontal cortex and anterior insula), expressed as response inhibition deficits that emerge most robustly in high arousal contexts. These neurocognitive processes appear remarkably parallel for positive and negative urgency. We provide methodological suggestions and theoretical hypotheses to guide future research.