NEURAL CORRELATES OF EMOTION REGULATION IN A SAMPLE OF SYRIAN REFUGEE CHILDREN: AN ERP STUDY

Introduction: The Syrian War led to millions of displaced families all around the world. A large portion of those refugees were children, who had to grow up abroad. The United States opened its doors to Syrian refugees, many of which resettled in Texas. As a result, many of these families, including the children, suffer challenges that may include depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. This study focuses on differences in regulation of emotions in these refugee children, whether they have symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and if they show resilience. Methods: Using a multi-method approach, the study consisted of the Emotion Regulation Task that measures event-related potentials (ERP) from an electroencephalograph (EEG) reading, and two surveys. The Emotion Regulation Task consists of three trial conditions (while measuring the ERP): look-neutral, look-negative, and decrease-negative. One survey is the Children’s Impact of Event Scale 13 measure (CRIES-13), which assesses the children for symptoms of PTSD, and the Child and Youth Resilience Measure (CYRM-R) which measures resiliency. Results: Age has a significant correlation with condition for the area under the curve (F (2,22) =4.02, p=.03). Repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) with ERP trials conditions within-subject factors and max value as the outcome approached significance (F (2,24) = 2.80, p=.08). No other variables were significant. Discussion: The main significant effect was between age and condition, which indicated that the participants reacted differently, or had different abilities in regulating emotion when interacting with the various tasks due to age. Further research is to be conducted with a larger sample, language modifications, and stricter age classifications among others.