Dysfunctions in bottom‐up emotion processing (EP), as well as top‐down emotion regulation (ER) are prominent features in pathophysiology of major depressive disorder (MDD). Nonetheless, it is not clear whether EP‐ and ER‐related areas are regionally and/or connectively disturbed in MDD. In addition, it is yet to be known how EP‐ and ER‐related areas are interactively linked to regulatory behavior, and whether this interaction is disrupted in MDD. In our study, regional amplitude of low frequency fluctuations (ALFF) and whole‐brain functional connectivity (FC) of meta‐analytic‐driven EP‐ and ER‐related areas were compared between 32 healthy controls (HC) and 20 MDD patients. Then, we aimed to investigate whether the EP‐related areas can predict the ER‐related areas and regulatory behavior in both groups. Finally, the brain–behavior correlations between the EP‐ and ER‐related areas and depression severity were assessed. We found that: (a) affective areas are regionally and/or connectively disturbed in MDD; (b) EP‐ER interaction seems to be disrupted in MDD; overburden of emotional reactivity in amygdala may inversely affect cognitive control processes in prefrontal cortices, which leads to diminished regulatory actions. (c) Depression severity is correlated with FC of affective areas. Our findings shed new lights on the neural underpinning of affective dysfunctions in depression.

Dysfunctions in bottom-up emotion processing (EP), as well as top-down emotion regulation (ER) are prominent features in pathophysiology of major depressive disorder (MDD). Nonetheless, it is not clear whether EP- and ER-related areas are regionally and/or connectively disturbed, and how they are interactively linked to abnormal affective symptoms of MDD. In this study, regional amplitude of low frequency fluctuations (ALFF) and whole-brain functional connectivity (FC) of meta-analytic-driven EP- and ER-related seeds were compared between 20 MDD patients and 32 healthy subjects. Then, we investigated whether the regulatory behavior can be predicted by the ALFF of EP-related seeds, and also whether this prediction is mediated by the ALFF of ER-related seeds. Finally, correlation between depression severity, ALFF and FC of EP- and ER-related seeds was assessed. We found that: (i) MDD is associated with regional/connectivity alterations of EP- and ER-related areas; (ii) the predictive relationship between elevated EP and weaker regulatory behavior is mediated by diminished ER in MDD; (iii) depression severity is correlated with FC of EP- and ER- related areas. Our findings shed new light on neural correlates of EP and ER in MDD.

Ineffective use of adaptive cognitive strategies (e.g., reappraisal) to regulate emotional states is often reported in a wide variety of psychiatric disorders, suggesting a common characteristic across different diagnostic categories. However, the extent of shared neurobiological impairments is incompletely understood. This study, therefore, aimed to identify the transdiagnostic neural signature of disturbed reappraisal using the coordinate‐based meta‐analysis (CBMA) approach. Following the best‐practice guidelines for conducting neuroimaging meta‐analyses, we systematically searched PubMed, ScienceDirect, and Web of Science databases and tracked the references. Out of 1,608 identified publications, 32 whole‐brain neuroimaging studies were retrieved that compared brain activation in patients with psychiatric disorders and healthy controls during a reappraisal task. Then, the reported peak coordinates of group comparisons were extracted and several activation likelihood estimation (ALE) analyses were performed at three hierarchical levels to identify the potential spatial convergence: the global level (i.e., the pooled analysis and the analyses of increased/decreased activations), the experimental‐contrast level (i.e., the analyses of grouped data based on the regulation goal, stimulus valence, and instruction rule) and the disorder‐group level (i.e., the analyses across the experimental‐contrast level focused on increasing homogeneity of disorders). Surprisingly, none of our analyses provided significant convergent findings. This CBMA indicates a lack of transdiagnostic convergent regional abnormality related to reappraisal task, probably due to the complex nature of cognitive emotion regulation, heterogeneity of clinical populations, and/or experimental and statistical flexibility of individual studies.

Cognitive emotion regulation (i.e., reappraisal) impairment is a key feature in a wide variety of mental disorders, suggesting common nature of disruption across psychiatric diagnoses. However, the extent of potential shared neurobiological disturbances related to reappraisalimpairment is incompletely understood. This study, therefore, aimed to identify neurobiological substrates of disturbed reappraisal using a transdiagnostic approach by performing a quantitative coordinate-based meta-analysis (CBMA) on reappraisal tasks across various mental disorders. Following the best-practice guidelines for neuroimaging meta-analysis, we systematicallysearched PubMed, ScienceDirect and Web of Science databases for whole-brain neuroimaging studies published through February 2020 that compared brain activation in patients with mental disorders and matched healthy controls during a reappraisal task. Out of 1608 publications, we retrieved 32 publications with 1240 unique individuals, providing sufficient power for conducting CBMA using activation likelihood estimation (ALE) method. The reported peak coordinates for the patient/control difference in selected articles were extracted and several ALE analyses were performed to identify spatial convergence. Surprisingly, neither the pooled ALE analysis noradditional analyses restricting to in-/decreased contrasts and more homogeneous grouping of coordinates (i.e., regulation direction, stimulus valence and disorder category) provided significant convergent findings. This CBMA indicates a lack of convergent regional abnormality related to reappraisal across various mental disorders. This might be due to the complex nature of reappraisal, heterogeneous clinical populations or methodological flexibility including preprocessing and analytical methods.

When a deviant stimulus is presented within a stream of homogeneous stimuli, its duration tends to be overestimated. Two experiments investigated the effects of oddball serial position and pitch deviancy on perceived duration. In Experiment 1, the oddball method was used, in which an oddball stimulus is embedded in a series of standard stimuli and randomly positioned in each trial. In Experiment 2, the oddball position was stable and its deviancy varied from trial to trial. Musician and nonmusician participants were asked to judge whether the comparison interval was shorter or longer than the standards. The study indicates that for nonmusicians, the duration of an oddball stimulus appears longer than the repeated standard stimuli. Moreover, the oddballs occurring in later positions in the stream of stimuli are perceived to be longer than oddballs occurring in earlier positions in the stream. Also, a higher degree of oddball deviancy results in a greater dilation of perceived duration. In contrast with the results of nonmusicians, there is neither a position nor a deviancy effect with musician participants; the subjective duration remains constant. Several explanations are discussed in order to account for these group differences.