Refugees often report heightened emotional reactivity and emotion regulation difficulties and are at high risk for mental health problems. Given that refugees are repeatedly exposed to traumatic events that may cause changes in the brain, the present study examined neural correlates of emotional reactivity and regulation and their associations with refugee features (e.g., cumulative trauma) and the severity of psychiatric symptoms (e.g., post-traumatic stress disorder [PTSD]) in North Korean (NK) refugees. Forty NK refugees with trauma exposure and varying levels of psychopathology and 41 healthy South Korean (SK) controls without trauma exposure participated in this study. They performed an emotion regulation task during a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) assessment. Region of interest (ROI), whole brain, and generalized psychophysiological interaction (gPPI) analyses were conducted. NK refugees with trauma exposure and varying levels of psychopathology showed increased activation in response to negative socio-affective pictures in regions involved in affective processing, including the amygdala and hippocampus, relative to healthy SK controls without trauma exposure. They also exhibited greater prefrontal cortex (PFC) activation, amygdala–PFC functional connectivity (FC), and hippocampal–PFC FC during emotion regulation. More severe PTSD symptoms were associated with greater hippocampal response to negative pictures (vs. neutral pictures) in NK refugees. This study provides neuroscientific evidence for neural alterations in association with emotional reactivity and regulation in traumatized refugees. These findings may contribute to a better mechanistic understanding of emotional reactivity and regulation in refugees and suggest potential ways to address the emotional and mental problems of traumatized refugees.

难民经常报告情绪反应和情绪调节困难，并且面临心理健康问题的高风险。鉴于难民反复暴露于可能导致大脑变化的创伤事件，本研究检查了情绪反应和调节的神经相关性及其与难民特征（例如累积性创伤）和精神症状的严重程度（例如， - 朝鲜 (NK) 难民的创伤性应激障碍 [PTSD])。40 名有创伤经历和不同程度的精神病理学的 NK 难民和 41 名没有创伤经历的健康韩国 (SK) 对照组参加了这项研究。他们在功能磁共振成像 (fMRI) 评估期间执行了情绪调节任务。感兴趣区域 (ROI)，全脑，并进行了广义心理生理学相互作用 (gPPI) 分析。与没有创伤暴露的健康 SK 对照相比，具有创伤暴露和不同程度精神病理学水平的 NK 难民在情感处理涉及的区域（包括杏仁核和海马体）中对负面社会情感图片的反应增加。在情绪调节过程中，他们还表现出更大的前额叶皮层 (PFC) 激活、杏仁核-PFC 功能连接 (FC) 和海马-PFC FC。更严重的 PTSD 症状与 NK 难民对负面图片（与中性图片）的海马反应更大有关。这项研究为受创伤难民的情绪反应和调节相关的神经改变提供了神经科学证据。