Emotion Dysregulation

Glossary Amygdala: An almond-shaped brain structure located in the temporal lobe, which is important in emotional responding. Dopamine: An important neurotransmitter (chemical messenger) in the brain, which has been implicated in motivation and reward, mood, attention, and learning. Emotion dysregulation: A maladaptive pattern of regulating emotions that may involve a failure of regulation or interference in adaptive functioning. Emotion regulation: A set of attentional, cognitive, behavioral, social, and biological processes that act to modulate, manage, or organize emotions. Hippocampus: Horseshoe-shaped structure adjacent to the amygdala, implicated in memory functioning and contextual processing. Nucleus accumbens: The reward and positive-affect center of the brain, involved with approach-related behavior. Prefrontal cortex: The anterior section of the brain, which is central to the top-down control of attention, inhibition, emotion regulation, complex learning, and theory-of-mind processing, the prefrontal cortex.