Neural Correlates of Positive and Negative Emotion Regulation

Abstract

The ability to cope adaptively with emotional events by volitionally altering one's emotional reactions is important for psychological and physical health as well as social interaction. Cognitive regulation of emotional responses to aversive events engages prefrontal regions that modulate activity in emotion-processing regions such as the amygdala. However, the neural correlates of the regulation of positive emotions remain largely unexplored. We used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine the neural correlates of cognitively increasing and decreasing emotional reactions to positive and negative stimuli. Participants viewed negative, positive, and neutral pictures while attempting to increase, decrease, or not alter their emotional reactions. Subjective reactions were assessed via on-line ratings. Consistent with previous studies, increasing negative and positive emotion engaged primarily left-lateralized prefrontal regions, whereas decreasing emotion activated bilateral prefrontal regions. Different activations unique to increasing versus decreasing emotion were observed for positive and negative stimuli: Unique increase-related activations were observed only for positive stimuli, whereas unique decrease-related activations were observed only for negative stimuli. Regulation also modulated activity in the amygdala, a key emotion-processing region. Regulation effects on amygdala activity were larger for positive than for negative stimuli, potentially reflecting a greater malleability of positive emotional reactions. Increasing and decreasing positive and negative emotion can thus increase and decrease subjective reactions and associated amygdala activity in line with regulatory goals, and is associated with different patterns of prefrontal activation as a function of emotional valence and regulatory goal.

Effects of emotion regulation strategy on brain responses to the valence and social content of visual scenes

“…Although brain imaging data on ESUP are still scarce, one study has reported an increase in prefrontal cortical activity during ESUP of negative emotions (either sadness or disgust; (Goldin et al, 2008). The same investigation also found increased amygdala and insula responses during ESUP, but only in a late period of prolonged exposure to disgusting film-clips, contrasting with the decreases observed in these regions during REAP (Kim & Hamann, 2007;Ochsner et al, 2002;Ochsner, Ray et al, 2004). Finally, whereas the use of REAP has been linked to enhanced control of emotion, better interpersonal functioning, and higher psychological and physical well-being, the frequent use of ESUP is thought to result in diminished control of emotion, worse interpersonal functioning, and greater risks for depression (Gross & John, 2003).…”

“…Secondly, most previous fMRI experiments on ER only differentiated modulatory effects as a function of the valence (VAL; positive vs. negative) and/or arousal values (low vs. high intensity) attributed to emotional stimuli (Kim & Hamann, 2007;Mak, Hu, Zhang, Xiao, & Lee, 2009), but did not consider other important aspects of the latter, such as their social versus nonsocial features. One exception is a recent investigation by Koenigsberg and colleagues where the authors used social negative images exclusively in a cognitive re-evaluation (REAP) paradigm (Koenigsberg et al, 2010).…”

“…This typically involves the intentional (conscious) generation of alternative interpretations in response to an event, allowing one to modify (e.g., minimize) its emotional significance. Accordingly, REAP has been shown to alter subjective emotion experience (as measured by physiological arousal and verbal reports) to both negative and positive emotional stimuli, and for both up-and down-regulation of affect (Kim & Hamann, 2007). Moreover, studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during REAP have shown increased activity in a widespread network of cortical frontal regions, together with simultaneous decreases in areas critical for emotion elicitation, such as the amygdala, the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), and insula (Goldin, McRae, Ramel, & Gross, 2008;Kim & Hamann, 2007;Ochsner, Bunge, Gross, & Gabrieli, 2002;Ochsner, Ray et al, 2004).…”

“…Firstly, most of the previous brain imaging studies on ER have investigated only one type of ER strategy at a time (Beauregard, Levesque, & Bourgouin, 2001;Kim & Hamann, 2007;Koenigsberg et al, 2010;Levesque et al, 2003;Ochsner et al, 2002;Ochsner, Ray et al, 2004), except for one study (Goldin et al, 2008) that compared REAP and ESUP in a single experimental design but focused on difference in the time-course of ER effects. Hence, still very little is known about the differential impact of REAP and ESUP on brain activity during emotional processing, particularly in relation to different stimulus types.…”

Regulating the expectation of reward via cognitive strategies

“…The second contrast (regulate versus attend trials) yielded a variety of cortical regions that have been previously implicated in emotion regulation 10,11,15 (Supplementary Table 2 online), although the precise foci of activation in these cortical regions differs slightly between studies as a result of factors such as differences in stimuli or techniques used 10 . We observed activation in the left middle frontal gyrus (BA 6/9; Fig.…”