Regulation of emotional responses elicited by threat‐related stimuli

Abstract

The capacity to voluntarily regulate emotions is critical for mental health, especially when coping with aversive events. Several neuroimaging studies of emotion regulation found the amygdala to be a target for downregulation and prefrontal regions to be associated with downregulation. To characterize the role of prefrontal regions in bidirectional emotion regulation and to investigate regulatory influences on amygdala activity and peripheral physiological measures, a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study with simultaneous recording of self-report, startle eyeblink, and skin conductance responses was carried out. Subjects viewed threat-related pictures and were asked to up- and downregulate their emotional responses using reappraisal strategies. While startle eyeblink responses (in successful regulators) and skin conductance responses were amplified during upregulation, but showed no consistent effect during downregulation, amygdala activity was increased and decreased according to the regulation instructions. Trial-by-trial ratings of regulation success correlated positively with activity in amygdala during upregulation and orbitofrontal cortex during downregulation. Downregulation was characterized by left-hemispheric activation peaks in anterior cingulate cortex, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and orbitofrontal cortex and upregulation was characterized by a pattern of prefrontal activation not restricted to the left hemisphere. Further analyses showed significant overlap of prefrontal activation across both regulation conditions, possibly reflecting cognitive processes underlying both up- and downregulation, but also showed distinct activations in each condition. The present study demonstrates that amygdala responses to threat-related stimuli can be controlled through the use of cognitive strategies depending on recruitment of prefrontal areas, thereby changing the subject's affective state.

GABAA Receptors Predict Aversion-Related Brain Responses: An fMRI-PET Investigation in Healthy Humans

“…Nonetheless, activations associated with the emotional regulation of unpleasant stimuli, such as in the dorsolateral prefrontal and orbitofrontal cortices, were not noted in the present study (Eippert et al, 2007). Also, given the correlational analyses used, we aimed to reduce the risk of false-positive findings through supporting approaches (eg, fMRI-PET at the whole-brain and ROI level), through consideration of the animal literature, and by using appropriate tests to determine the equality between two dependent correlations (see Materials and methods for additional information).…”

Having a word with yourself: Neural correlates of self-criticism and self-reassurance

“…This may indicate that individuals who report high levels of self-reassurance have good self-regulatory control related to emotional processing. The VLPFC is associated with the top-down regulation of limbic regions, implicated in emotional processing (Eippert et al, 2007), and also in studies of emotional reappraisal of negatively valenced stimuli (Johnstone et al, 2007, Ochsner et al, 2004. Lateral OFC (BA 47) activation was also found to positively correlate with high RS scores for the self-critical condition, suggesting that additional recruitment of inhibitory control processes was instigated during self-critical thoughts in these individuals.…”

Working Memory for Social Cues Recruits Orbitofrontal Cortex and Amygdala: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study of Delayed Matching to Sample for Emotional Expressions

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