Fronto-Parietal Oscillatory Dynamics of Emotion Regulation as a Function of Adult Attachment Orientations

Abstract

Emotion regulation enables individuals to modulate emotional experiences and behaviors according to situational demands. Within attachment theory, individual differences in attachment anxiety and avoidance are conceived as interpersonal dispositions that influence the quality and efficiency of emotion regulation strategies, potentially shaping the underlying neural dynamics. This study examined cortical oscillatory activity during two regulation strategies--cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression--focusing on theta (4-8 Hz) and beta (15-30 Hz) bands at the source level. Forty adults (21 male, 18 female, 1 gender-unspecified; M = 27.58 years, SD = 8.71) performed an emotion regulation task involving emotionally evocative images from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) while EEG was recorded. Cortical sources were reconstructed using standardized low-resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (sLORETA). Linear mixed-effects models (LMMs) assessed the effects of condition, region of interest (ROI), and attachment orientations on oscillatory power. Results showed that higher attachment anxiety predicted reduced theta power in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) during reappraisal, indicating attenuated recruitment of cognitive control mechanisms. In the beta band, suppression reduced activity in the right parietal lobe/precuneus -- a region involved in self-referential and attentional processes -- across participants, while during reappraisal, attachment anxiety was linked to lower beta power and attachment avoidance to higher beta power in the left dlPFC. Together, these findings indicate that cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression engage distinct cortical oscillatory systems, and that interpersonal dispositions modulate their neural implementation. Frontal theta appears to index top-down control during reappraisal, whereas beta activity shows a dual pattern: frontal beta variations reflect differences in control stability associated with attachment orientations, and parietal beta decreases during suppression suggest attentional disengagement from self-referential processing.