Dissociable Posterior and Anterior Insula Activations in Processing Negative Stimulus Before and After the Application of Cognitive Reappraisals

Abstract

Although the role of the insular cortex in representing bodily and emotional feelings has been recognized, whether the mid-posterior and anterior parts of the insula act differentially in the encoding and regulation of emotional feelings is still unclear. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we examined the effects of the creative cognitive reappraisals versus the non-creative ordinary reappraisals on the activation pattern of the mid-posterior and anterior insular cortex during the processing of unpleasant pictures by comparing the neural correlates for processing these pictures before and after the application of cognitive reappraisals. We found significant anterior insular activation after the application of cognitive reappraisals, especially the creative ones, in contrast to the significant mid-posterior insular activation before the application of the cognitive reappraisals or after the application of the non-creative ordinary reappraisals. This finding supports the posterior-to-anterior progression hypothesis with the mid-posterior insular cortex being used for the encoding of primary emotional feelings and the anterior insular cortex being used for the encoding of regulated or modulated emotional feelings.

Lasting effects of cognitive emotion regulation: neural correlates of reinterpretation and distancing

“…Our results of reinterpretation reducing posterior and increasing anterior insula activation are in correspondence with previous findings showing the same activation pattern for affective stimuli from pre to post cognitive reappraisal by reinterpretation ( Zhang et al , 2020 ). These findings are also interpreted with regard to Craig’s posterior to anterior distinction of the insula ( Craig, 2009 ). While posterior insula activation might reflect reduced experience of negative feelings, increased anterior insula activation might more likely be associated with enhanced cognitive processing after reinterpretation.…”

Neural correlates of negative emotion processing in subthreshold depression

“…The insula, receiving and sending out information to limbic-related structures, plays an important role in emotional processing, particularly negative emotion processing ( Shah et al. , 2009 ; Zhang et al. , 2020 ).…”

The role of creative cognitive reappraisals in positively transforming negative emotions

“…The major experimental materials were 40 unpleasant pictures from the IAPS (Lang et al, 2005) together with corresponding cognitive reappraisal sentences of high and low creativity, taken from the cognitive reappraisal item pool that was established for the unpleasant IAPS pictures (X. Wu et al, 2017Wu et al, , 2019Zhang et al, 2020). The images included a variety of unpleasant stimuli and situations, such as threat/attack scenes, animals, and disgusting stimuli.…”

“…In addition, the application of creative reappraisals could be associated with brain action in the key regions or networks mediating the process of cognitive restructuring and emotion improvement (X. Wu et al, 2019), implying that the function of this regulation is creating insight or cognitive restructuring (see Shen et al, 2017 for a review) and increasing positive emotion. Creative reappraisals were also found to be more capable of transferring emotional feelings represented in the posterior insular cortex to the anterior part of the insular cortex, implying a more intensive cognitive modulation of internal emotional feelings (Zhang et al, 2020). In addition, our recent study found that the creative humor coping with unpleasant emotions accompanied by viewing negative pictures could be realized through the “aha!…”

“…More specifically, in the 2×2 experimental design of Experiment 1, we took the following into consideration. (1) A “ creativeness hypothesis ” (H1), which was based on the superior regulatory efficacy and positive activation in the reward areas (X. Wu et al, 2017, 2019; Zhang et al, 2020), would predict the enhanced power of the creative reappraisal, regardless of simultaneous and delayed delivery, in making the “negative‐to‐positive transformation,” relative to the ordinary one. In addition, this could be embodied as a significant main effect of the creativeness factor.…”