Estradiol Modulation Of Female Adolescent Emotion Regulation

There is accumulating evidence that brain activity during emotion and cognitive tasks is altered by hormone changes across the menstrual cycle. Specifically, high estradiol appears to be relevant to successful emotion generation and regulation as it enhances prefrontal cortex-mediated function. Thus, estradiol might alter the way girls’ brains engage when using a reappraisal-based emotion regulation strategy to alter their emotional reactions. This study examined for the first time the association between estradiol levels and brain activation during an emotion regulation fMRI task in girls. Our purpose was to determine whether estradiol modulation during emotion regulation primarily occurred in cortical regions, subcortical regions or both.