Objective: To assess psychological and psychophysiological correlates of emotion recognition and anger experience in participants with traumatic brain injury (TBI). Participants and design: 20 participants with TBI presenting anger problems and 22 healthy controls participated in tasks assessing emotion recognition (The French Evaluation Task) and anger expression (Anger regulation task). The latter was designed to elicit and modulate anger feelings through verbal recall of a self-experienced

more »

... ent. It involved four recall conditions that followed a resting period: neutral, uninstructed anger recall, anger rumination and anger reappraisal. Measures: Skin conductance levels during recall and a self-report anger questionnaire between each condition. Results: In the TBI and control groups, self-reported anger was similarly modulated across emotion regulation conditions. However, only in the TBI group skin conductance levels significantly increased between neutral and uninstructed anger recall conditions. Conclusions: Impaired emotion regulation in TBI participants could be related to increased levels of autonomic system activity during emotional experience. However, anger feelings in these participants can also be modulated with the use of emotion regulation strategies, including adaptive strategies such as reappraisal. Thus, promoting awareness and management of physiological activation, and encouraging cognitive restructuring can be recommended for interventions targeting emotion regulation in TBI patients. * This study is a reprint of the article: Aboulafia-Brakha, T.; Allain, P.; Ptak, R. (2015) Emotion regulation after traumatic brain injury: distinct patterns of sympathetic activity during anger expression and recognition. Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation (in press).