Part A:Describe the last time you had to use Emotion Regulation. Please describe the activating incident and the subsequent regulation.

1. What emotion regulation strategies did you deploy in this instance?
2. How was this experience reflected in bottom-up and top-down brain processes?
3. Reflect upon your own intrinsic brain connectivity (e.g., btw the vmPFC and amygdala, or the OFC and the amygdala). How do you think your intrinsic brain connectivity contributed to your ability to emotion regulate in this circumstance? (NOTE: Remember that intrinsic brain connectivity is more about integrity than more/less AND that your ability can be strong or weak).
4. How do you think the strategies, bottom-up/top-down processes and intrinsic brain connectivity would be different for someone with ONE of the disorders of emotion regulation we discussed (i.e., PTSD, Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), Substance Abuse Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder, Depression).

Part B:Describe the mechanism you proposed for healthy development of emotion regulation in adolescence (or propose a new one). Provide support for the effectiveness of your proposal as it pertains to adolescents' a) imbalance of top-down/bottom-up processes (limbic and prefrontal areas), b) increase in reward sensitivity, c) risk taking in social contexts (peers and parents), as well as hot and cool cognitive control.PART C:

Sierra's mother discovered she was pregnant in February, 2020. The next month, everything went into COVID lockdown. Sierra's father was considered an essential worker in a hospital and needed to work onsite - and chose not to come home during this time so as not to put his partner and the fetus at risk. Sierra's mother's job was not considered essential but also could be done remotely and so Sierra mom lost her job. She chose not to go to prenatal visits, and spent the majority of her pregnancy alone. When Sierra was born, her father was not allowed to be present because he had contracted COVID. Sierra's father was in isolation for two months following her birth and was unable to be present for Sierra's mother, and it was months before any family member was able to visit the new baby. Due to the loss of Sierra's mothers job, and Sirerra's father's long isolation without pay, they were unable to cover their household expenses and had to leave their home when Sierra was about 6 months old. Around the same time, Sierra's maternal grandmother died - never having met Sierra due to her living in a residential care facility. However, Sierra and her family were able to move into her house and began the process of re-visiting life. Unfortunately, due to the extreme social isolation and distress that Sierra's mom experienced, she was not always able to be consistently responsive to Sierra - even though they were constantly together. As an infant and young toddler, Sierra showed signs of strong negative reactivity, lack of ability to be soothed, and periods of time where she did not react at all. When Sierra was two years old, her mom got a new job that she worked at outside of the home, and Sierra's paternal grandmother was able to come to their house and watch Sierra while her mom was at work. Sierra and her grandmother developed a close and mutually engaging relationship and now Sierra is a bright and lively young child - although she does have some difficulty knowing how to engage appropriately with her peers.

1. How did the prenatal exposure to extreme stress and uncertainty influence Sierra's brain development? Use evidence to link her mother's stress to Sierra's Brain development and behavior.
2. How did the postnatal exposure to stress and uncertainty influence Sierra's brain development and behavior?
3. How does her close relationship to her grandmother influence her brain development and behavior? Why does it have this effect?