Some psychologists argue that female psychopathy is sometimes diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, instead characterized by poorly regulated emotions, impulsive reactions, and outbursts of anger.
These results suggested that both groups successfully regulated emotions without significant group differences.
The ability to regulate emotion – i.e., to disengage from or avoid negative emotional stimuli – may be necessary to decrease the salience of negative stimuli.
The circuits that are activated are not those associated with logical reasoning but those that regulate emotion.
Previous research had suggested that this part of the brain (which regulates emotion) is an important centre of religious activity.
This especially is the case in the brain areas that regulate emotion, pain, attention, stress and well-being.
Parkinson's placebos prompt the brain to release dopamine; anxiety and depression placebos elicit changes in the areas of the brain that regulate emotion.
Neurotics, or those who often have negative, depressing thoughts, tend to have a smaller medial prefrontal cortex, a part of the brain known to regulate emotion.
The new evolutionary theories are certainly interesting, in that they make us look at dreams from a different perspective, and think about what pressures in our ancestral environment might have made having nightmares an advantage — regulating fear, regulating emotion.
Dr. Zahn-Waxler says the kind of discipline a child receives should "help the child regulate emotion, to calm down rather than become more agitated".
In the brain, prefrontal areas, which help regulate emotion, can relax, freeing them for another of their primary purposes: problem solving.
