Resilient control : Neural emotion-regulatory circuitries predicting acute and long-term stress-responses

When we try to cope with stressful or challenging situations, our ability to regulate our responses towards these events is crucial. The general aim of this thesis was to investigate the role of prefrontal control over approach-avoidance tendencies in explaining individual differences in stress vulnerability and emotional responsivity. The large NWO-subsidized prospective longitudinal Police-In-Action (PIA) study enabled me to address this question in early-career police officers at high risk for trauma-exposure.

First, I conducted a literature review (chapter 2) and two crosssectional studies on individual differences using the data that we acquired at baseline (chapter 3 and 4), paving the way for the two longitudinal studies (chapter 5 and 6). The results show that recruitment of the anterior PFC is beneficial for adequate coping with subsequent stressors. In this final chapter, I will summarize this work and integrate it with the existing literature on the neurobiological mechanisms of stress and emotion regulation.

Thereafter, I will discuss the limitations of the conducted studies and highlight implications and future directions.