Table 1.

Cultural Neuroscience Approach to Studying PER and Psychopathology

Level of Analysis	Key Methodology	Key Dependent Variables
Cultural	Self-Report Surveys on Culture	Cultural values (Independence, Interdependence)
Neural	fMRI	Reward-related neural activity (VTA, NAcc, OFC, VS) Cognitive control related neural activity (mPFC, dlPFC)
Genetic	Behavioral Genetics	Emotional attention and responding in carriers of 5-HTTLPR long (L) and short (S) alleles Risk and reward sensitivity in carriers of DRD4 long (L) and short (S) alleles
Psychophysiology	Parasympathetic Nervous System Activity	RSA
Behavioral	Self-Report Surveys on Emotion	PA, NA Positive Emotion Items Emotion Regulation Items
	FACS	Facial expressions of positive emotion (happiness, pride, compassion)

Note: PER = Positive Emotion Regulation which refers to the process of maintaining, upregulating, or downregulating positive emotion; fMRI = Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging which provides an indirect measure of neural activity; VTA = ventral tegmental area; nACC = nucleus accumbens; OFC = orbitofrontal cortex; VS = ventral striatum; mPFC = medial prefrontal cortex; dlPFC = dorsolateral prefrontal cortex; 5-HTTLPR = Serotonin Transporter Linked Polymorphic Region, long (L) and short (S) alleles; DRD4 = Dopamine Receptor D4, long (L) and short (S) alleles refer to variants of a polymorphic region within the exon III region of the DRD4 gene; RSA = Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia; PA = Positive Affect; NA = Negative Affect; FACS = Facial Action Coding System.