Previously submitted to: JMIR Mental Health (no longer under consideration since Dec 16, 2025)
Date Submitted: Dec 16, 2025
Open Peer Review Period: Dec 16, 2025 - Dec 16, 2025
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From Neuroscience to Educational Technology: A Theoretical 5&4 Model Driven Study on Digital Interventions for College Students’ Mental Health
ABSTRACT
Background:
University students face multidimensional stressors, including academic demands, interpersonal challenges, peer influence, and sleep disruption, which can impair emotional well-being, academic performance, and overall resilience.
Objective:
Drawing on Gross’s five-stage emotion regulation framework and informed by Dual-Process Theory, this study introduces the 5&4 Model, integrating emotion regulation stages with four empirically derived stress dimensions and their corresponding neural substrates (dlPFC, vmPFC, hippocampus, amygdala, insula) to ensure biological plausibility.
Methods:
Qualitative data from 318 questionnaires were analyzed to map stress perceptions to stage specific regulatory strategies. The model was operationalized into a prototype digital platform, the Student Daily Psychological Wellness Platform (SDPWP), featuring scenario based stress exposure, interactive strategy selection, model-driven feedback, and long-term behavioral tracking.
Results:
Findings highlight the predominance of academic stress, the modulatory role of social support, and the latent impact of peer comparison, demonstrating the interplay of cognitive, social, and physiological mechanisms in emotion regulation.
Conclusions:
This study advances the integration of psychology, neuroscience, and educational technology by providing a theoretically grounded, empirically validated, and digitally operational framework. The 5&4 Model and SDPWP platform offer scalable, personalized, and preventive interventions for enhancing students’ emotional self-regulation, psychological resilience, and adaptive coping in higher education contexts.
Citation
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