Abnormal brain oscillations and activation of patients with heroin use disorder during emotion regulation: The role of delta- and theta-band power

Emotion dysregulation is a crucial component of substance use disorders in predisposition, maintenance, and relapse. Emotional regulation strategies are an important factor in emotion dysregulation. However, studies on heroin use disorder (HUD) patients' ability to use emotion regulation strategies are scarce. Time-frequency-based analyses were used to compare the power of 33 patients with HUD and 28 healthy controls to elucidate whether patients with HUD have abnormal neural oscillations during passive viewing and emotion regulation strategies. Using the standardized low-resolution brain electromagnetic tomography algorithm (sLORETA), we estimated the possible sources of the anomalous band power. Compared to patients with HUD, healthy controls showed a stronger decrease in the power of the delta/theta band across all task conditions. The effect peaked at approximately 1300–1900 ms after stimulus onset and varied by task condition. The estimation of sLORETA suggested the frontal, parietal, and limbic lobes as possible generators. We cannot exclude the potential influence of additional factors, such as sex, depression and anxiety levels, and polysubstance use, on the results. Patients with HUD have blunted arousal and impaired ability to use emotion regulation strategies. The abnormal patterns described above may be the underlying neurophysiological basis for this dysfunction. Future studies could combine different approaches to improve emotion dysregulation in patients with HUD to promote treatment outcomes.