Abstract
The lateral prefrontal and orbitofrontal cortices have both been implicated in emotion regulation, but their distinct roles in regulation of negative emotion remain poorly understood. To address this issue we enrolled 58 participants in an fMRI study in which participants were instructed to reappraise both negative and neutral stimuli. This design allowed us to separately study activations reflecting cognitive processes associated with reappraisal in general and activations specifically related to reappraisal of negative emotion. Our results confirmed that both the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and the lateral orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) contribute to emotion regulation through reappraisal. However, activity in the DLPFC was related to reappraisal independently of whether negative or neutral stimuli were reappraised, whereas the lateral OFC was uniquely related to reappraisal of negative stimuli. We suggest that relative to the lateral OFC, the DLPFC serves a more general role in emotion regulation, perhaps by reflecting the cognitive demand that is inherent to the regulation task.
Highlights
The capacity to regulate the generation, experience and expression of emotion is a central aspect of mental health [1]
Amygdala Activation First, to confirm that our experimental task effectively engaged the amygdala when participants were exposed to negative pictures, we looked at the main effect of Valence within the predefined amygdala region of interest (ROI)
In line with our hypothesis regarding the distinct roles of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and the lateral orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) in emotion regulation, our results showed that the DLPFC was activated across the reappraisal task irrespectively of whether the reappraisal effort was targeted on negative or neutral stimuli
Summary
The capacity to regulate the generation, experience and expression of emotion is a central aspect of mental health [1]. We tested the prediction that the DLPFC serves a more general cognitive control function in emotion regulation, whereas the lateral OFC is uniquely engaged in inhibition of negative emotions during an instruction-induced reappraisal task. To address this issue, we used a 262 factorial design crossing factors of instruction (reappraisal vs no reappraisal) and stimulus valence (emotional vs non-emotional). We hypothesized that the DLPFC would be activated across conditions requiring reappraisal (general contribution), whereas the OFC would be uniquely activated during conditions involving reappraisal of negative emotion (unique contribution)
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