BackgroundNeuroimaging has demonstrated that voluntary emotion regulation is effective in reducing amygdala activation to aversive stimuli during regulation. However, to date little is known about the sustainability of these neural effects once active emotion regulation has been terminated.Methodology/Principal FindingsWe addressed this issue by means of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in healthy female subjects. We performed an active emotion regulation task using aversive visual scenes (task 1) and a subsequent passive viewing task using the same stimuli (task 2). Here we demonstrate not only a significantly reduced amygdala activation during active regulation but also a sustained regulation effect on the amygdala in the subsequent passive viewing task. This effect was related to an immediate increase of amygdala signal in task 1 once active emotion regulation has been terminated: The larger this peak postregulation signal in the amygdala in task 1, the smaller the sustained regulation effect in task 2.Conclusions/SignificanceIn summary, we found clear evidence that effects of voluntary emotion regulation extend beyond the period of active regulation. These findings are of importance for the understanding of emotion regulation in general, for disorders of emotion regulation and for psychotherapeutic interventions.

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To comprehend emotional prosodic cues in speech is a critical function of human social life. However, it is common in everyday communication that conflicting information in emotional prosody and semantic content co-occur. Here, we sought to specify brain regions involved in conflict monitoring of these interfering communication channels. By means of functional magnetic resonance imaging, we obtained signal increases in the right dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and right superior temporal gyrus (STG) and superior temporal sulcus when participants listened to incongruous compared with congruous sentences. Moreover, valence-specific effects were found in the left inferior frontal gyrus and left STG for happily intoned sentences expressing a negative content. The left caudate nucleus along with the thalamus was active when angrily intoned sentences were coupled with positive semantic content. Our results suggest a brain network that monitors conflict in emotional prosody and emotional semantic content comprising of medial prefrontal areas that have previously been associated with cognitive conflict processing. Furthermore, our study extends the knowledge of these processes by suggesting valence-specific differences of emotional conflict processing.

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