BOSTON, March 12 (UPI) -- U.S. researchers say brain activity may help predict emotional resiliency.
Study lead author Christine Hooker of Harvard University says activity in the lateral prefrontal cortex may be key to everyday emotional "bounce back" and suggests improved function within this region may improve day-to-day mood.
The study, published in Biological Psychiatry, demonstrates individuals with more neural activity in the lateral prefrontal cortex are less likely to be upset the day after fighting with a partner.
"What we found, as you might expect, was that everybody felt badly on the day of the conflict with their partners," Hooker says in statement. "But the day after, people who had high-lateral prefrontal cortex activity felt better and the people who had low-lateral pre-frontal cortex activity continued to feel badly."
Hooker and colleagues asked healthy couples in a relationship lasting three months or longer to look at pictures of their partners with positive, negative or neutral expressions while their brain activity was recorded. Participants were also tested in the laboratory for their broader cognitive control skills, such as impulse control. The couples recorded whether they had a fight and daily emotional state in online diaries.
