Self-Control

The ability of human infants to dynamically adapt their physiological states to changing social demands is critical for the development of emotion regulation. We investigated infant parasympathetic dynamics related to emotion regulation-changes in respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA)-using a large sample of 974 at-risk infant-mother dyads (infant age: 4 months). Infant RSA was elevated during bouts of positive engagement matching with their mothers, characterized by mutual positive engagement. Specifically, infant RSA began to increase more than 5 seconds before the onset of bouts of positive engagement matching and remained elevated for at least 4 seconds after bout onsets. These periods were substantially extended when the bouts began with positive expressions from the mother. Strikingly, there were no increases in infant RSA before or during bouts of either infant or mother solo positive engagement. Findings from these exploratory analyses suggest the possibility of bi-directional associations between ongoing social interactions and infant parasympathetic reactivity in which positive mother expressions support increases in infant RSA that in turn support prolonged infant engagement in mutual positivity. Thus, early social interaction is not simply an elicitor of infant positive expressions. Instead, mutual positive expressivity may facilitate infant neurophysiological changes that underlie emotion regulation. This article is part of the theme issue 'Mechanisms, development, phylogeny and functions of emotional expressions'.

Emotion regulation is essential for well-being and mental health, yet individuals vary widely in their emotion regulation success. Why? Traditional neuroimaging studies of emotion regulation often focus on localized neural activity or isolated networks, overlooking how large-scale brain organization relates to the integration of distributed systems and sub-processes supporting regulatory success. Here, we applied a novel system-level framework based on spatial gradients of macroscale brain organization to study variance in emotion regulation success. Using two large functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) datasets (n = 358, n = 263), we projected global activation patterns from a laboratory emotion regulation task onto principal gradients derived from independent resting-state fMRI data from the Human Connectome Project. These gradients capture low-dimensional patterns of neural variation, providing a topographical framework within which complex mental phenomena, such as emotion regulation, emerge. In both datasets, individual differences in regulation success were associated with systematic reconfiguration along Gradient 1-a principal axis differentiating unimodal and heteromodal brain areas. This gradient-based neural reconfiguration also associates with lower negative affect in daily life, as measured via smartphone-based experience sampling in a subset of participants (n = 55). Meta-analytic decoding via Neurosynth revealed that Gradient 1 and regulation success align with multiple psychological processes, including social cognition, memory, attention, and negative emotion, suggesting this gradient reflects diverse, integrative demands during effective emotion regulation. These findings introduce a gradient-based perspective on emotion regulation success that is biologically grounded in well-established large-scale brain organization and ecologically valid through its links with real-world emotional experience. Such gradient-based dynamics may serve as predictive biomarkers of regulatory success and inform targeted interventions in clinical populations.

IntroductionThe primary school setting is a dynamic practice context for occupational therapists. Despite a clear interest in understanding and intervening in self-regulation in the classroom, little school-specific literature is available.MethodsA scoping review was conducted to examine how occupational therapists understand self-regulation in the mainstream primary school setting. The literature was searched as follows: occupational therapists (population [P]); self-regulation intervention, assessment, or program (concept [C]); and education, school, and classrooms (context [C]).Consumer and community involvementNo consumers were directly involved in this review. The topic was informed by occupational therapy practice with teachers and families to ensure relevance to school and community needs.ResultsLiterature was scoped from five key health databases (CINAHL Complete, Embase via Ovid, ERIC, Ovid MEDLINE, and APA PsycInfo), with 192 papers initially identified. Two authors completed initial title and abstract screening, and full-text papers were reviewed by the entire research team. Data were charted into tables following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines and JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis. Papers were included if occupational therapists were the main population of interest; included an intervention that improved classroom self-regulation skills (student or teacher), and occurred in a mainstream primary school (public or private).ConclusionTwelve papers were included in the final review. Seven papers were from a peer-reviewed source, and five papers were dissertations (i.e. grey literature). Self-regulation continues to be incompletely considered in the included papers, with papers either focussed on related constructs or on self-regulation-targeting programmes. Self-regulation was also not well understood occupationally, with little to no operationalisation in terms of students' school-related occupational performance and/or engagement outcomes. Further research is needed to appropriately conceptualise, define, and map self-regulation occupationally.