Neural Correlates of Positive and Negative Emotion Regulation

“Whereas the dorsal sector of the MPFC was activated commonly for all types of regulation tasks regardless of emotion type, the ventral part of the MPFC (BA 10), a region associated with self-referential processing and evaluation of internally generated information ( Kelly, Macrae, Wyland, Inati, & Heatherton, 2002; Cr…”

“A recent study reported that the neural correlates of down-regulating negative emotion differed depending on whether the stimuli depicted violations of moral rules, an effect that was observed even after arousal and other relevant stimulus factors had been equated ( Harenski & Hamann, 2006 ).”

“…et al. (2006) 1 None D4 C3 15 15 0.95 Katz & Bertelson (1993) 1 Sadness D4 C1 32 32 1.79 Kavanagh et al. (2001) 1 Negative affect D4 Cont1 18 0.81 Kim & Hamann (2007) 1 Negative affect R4 Cont4 10 1.83 Kingston et al. (2007) 1 Pain R1 D4 21 21 0.15 Koenigsberg et al. (2009) 1 Negative affect R3…”

“, to aversive versus appetitive stimuli), which have begun to be addressed in other papers (Eippert et al., 2007; Goldin et al., 2007; Johnstone et al., 2007; Kim and Hamann, 2007; Ochsner et al., 2004; van Reekum et al., 2007).”

“In effect, specific patterns of activity in the PFC have been shown to predict the extent and duration of affective responses to rewar”

“Neuroscience data have clearly shown that although upregulation and down-regulation recruit common brain regions suggestive of at least some similar underlying processes, each type of regulation is also associated with unique areas of activation (Kim & Hamann, 2007; Ochsner et al., 2004).”

“Other researchers have used positive stimuli in the form of erotica (Beauregard, Lévesque, & Bourgouin, 2001) or pictures of cute pets and sporting events (Kim & Hamann, 2007).”

“Unfortunately, most studies that are designed to separate reactivity from regulation have used only women (Eippert et al., 2007; Goldin et al., 2008; Harenski & Hamann, 2006; Kim & Hamann, 2007; Ochsner et al., 2002, 2004) or did not compare men and women (Phan et al., 2005; Urry et al., 2006; van Reekum et al., 2007).”

“Several other neuroimaging studies have reported similar modulation of the amygdala response with emotion regulation, along with involvement of regions of the dlPFC (e.g., Beauregard et al., 2001; Kim and Hamann, 2007; Levesque et al., 2003; Ochsner et al., 2004b; Phan et al., 2005), as well as anterior”

“This fits with prior studies on the regulation of negative emotion (26) and positive emotion (30, 32) showing activation of these prefrontal systems, and suggests that common prefrontal– subcortical dynamics support the use of cognition to regulate responses to various kinds of affective cues, including drug cues.”

“, 2010), neural indicators of emotional responding (Schaefer et al., 2002; Ochsner et al., 2004; Hajcak and Nieuwenhuis, 2006; Urry et al., 2006; Kim and Hamann, 2007) and economic decisions thought to be influenced by affect (Sokol-Hessner et al.”

“…Larson, & Davidson, 2000), and activation in brain regions involved in the processing of negative emotion such as the amygdala and the insula (Eippert et al., 2007; Kim & Hamann, 2007; Urry et al., 2006; Phan et al., 2005; Ochsner, Ray, et al., 2004; Ochsner, Bunge, Gross, & Gabrieli, 2002).”

“Other investigators (Eippert et al. 2007; Goldin et al. 2008; Kim and Hamann 2007; Urry et al. 2006) have replicated these basic findings and demonstrate that both re-appraise and negative-reappraise instructions led to increased PFC activity, re-appraise led to less amygdala activity relative to watch instructions, w…”

“This reappraisal strategy has been shown to successfully reduce negative emotion in numerous prior studies (Johnstone, van Reekum, Urry, Kalin, & Davidson, 2007; Kim & Hamann, 2007; Ochsner, Bunge, Gross, & Gabrieli, 2002; Ochsner et al., 2004; Urry et al., 2006; van Reekum et al., 2007).”

“Furthermore, distinct emotion regulation strategies have been found to involve different brain mechanisms (Gyurak, Gross, & Etkin, 2011; Kim & Hamann, 2007).”

“Although fMRI evidence suggests that instructions to enhance can increase both amygdala activity and subjective ratings of stimuli (Kim & Hamann, 2007; Urry et al., 2006; Ochsner et al., 2004), at least one ERP study has failed to find the LPP to be sensitive to enhancement effects (Moser et al.,…”

“…identied in the comparatively few paradigms that have included both ncrease and decrease tasks, suggesting direction-dependent reglation networks (Kim and Hamann, 2007; Urry et al., 2006). his creates somewhat of an interpretational challenge in assessng the specificity of an emotional…”

“When asked to reappraise or down regulate positive or sexually arousing stimuli, the level of right amygdala activation to the stimuli decreased (Beauregard et al., 2001; Kim and Hamann, 2007).”

“Given that the NAcc and fronto-striatal network have been implicated in reward processing (30–32) and positive emotion regulation (7), we hypothesized these networks to be involved in the disordered regulation of positive affect characteristic of anhedonia.”

“These strategies have been used in previous studies of this task.(22,32,34)”

“, 2004) or to modulate positive emotions (Beauregard et al., 2001; Herwig et al., 2007; Johnstone et al., 2007; Kim and Hamann, 2007; Schaefer et al., 2003).”

“…control of emotion that ranges on a continuum from attentional control of emotion (e.g., selective inattention: Hariri et al., 2000; Vuilleumier et al, 2001) to effortful cognitive change of emotional response (e.g., reappraisal: Ochsner et al., 2002; Kim & Hamann, 2004; Phan et al, 2004).”

“Most of the previous emotion regulation research has focused on conscious/deliberate forms of regulation, such as instructed reappraisal (Kim & Hamann, 2007; Ochsner, Bunge, Gross, & Gabrieli, 2002), suppression (Jackson et al., 2003), and cognitive distraction (Denkova, Chakrabarty, Dolcos, &…”

“A number of studies have explored the brain areas involved in the cognitive regulation of emotional responses, and showed enhanced activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), the orbito-frontal cortex (OFC), and the ACC during the cognitive regulation of emotional reactions [Eippert et al., 2007; Kim and H…”

“A large number of studies have now examined the neural correlates of various aspects of emotion regulation (e.g., Etkin et al. 2015; Kim and Hamann 2007; Rive et al., 2013; Taylor and Liberzon 2007; Ziv et al. 2013).”

“This is in accordance with other studies showing no (Kim and Hamann, 2007) or only late (N10 seconds, Goldin et al.”

“…hypotheses related to emotion regulation in psychiatric disorders (Beauregard, Levesque, & Bourgouin, 2001; Goldin, McRae, Ramel, & Gross, 2008; Kim & Hamann, 2007; Levesque et al., 2003; Ochsner, Bunge, Gross, & Gabrieli, 2002; Ochsner et al., 2004; Phan et al., 2005; Schaefer et al., 2002;…”

“making sure current strategies meet the regulatory goals (Etkin et al., 2011; Kim and Hamann, 2007).”

“Several adult neuroimaging studies of cognitive reappraisal support Ochsners’ model, using both the reinterpretation cognitive reappraisal strategy [239, 266, 280] and the distancing cognitive reappraisal strategy [23, 91, 121, 167, 186, 212, 269, 356].”

“…regulation and fear extinction in healthy participants suggests that the vmPFC and rostral ACC are involved in decreasing arousal responses to negative emotional stimuli (Etkin, Egner, & Kalisch, 2011; Kim & Hamann, 2007; Milad, Wright, et al., 2007; Ochsner, Bunge, Gross, & Gabrieli, 2002).”

“, making a key distinction between reappraisal and suppression), it remains to be determined whether more specific regulation strategies are differentially modulated by individual attachment orientations—beyond the traditional strategies studied in healthy people (Ochsner et al., 2002, 2004a; Kim and Hamann, 2007; McR…”

“IFGpo is also activated during cognitive inhibition as in the colorword Stroop task (Leung et al., 2000) and during affective inhibitory control in affect regulation tasks (Ochsner et al., 2004; Kim and Hamann, 2007).”

“Behaviorally, instructed reappraisal decreases motion experience (12,13).”

“Insofar as intentional up-regulation of positive emotion is believed to involve increased activation in a predominantly left lateralized prefrontal network that potentiates striatal activation (135, 176), mindfulness-induced positive affectivity may remediate impaired dopaminergic responses in the striatum to hedonic…”

“Right IFG activity when watching healthy and AIDS drug use targets did not significantly differ, t (21) = − 0.33, p > .15.”

“controlling the influence of emotional responses that interfere with the pursuit of more distal goals (Beer et al., 2006b; Hooker and Knight, 2006; Kim and Hamann, 2007; Watanabe and Sakagami, 2007).”

“In line with this proposal, recent studies on cognitive appraisals show that the PFC is involved both in up-regulation and down-regulation of emotional experience (Ochsner et al. 2004; Harenski & Hamann 2006; Kim & Hamann 2007).”

“Although our findings point to a specific contribution of the lateral OFC during down-regulation of negative emotion, previous studies have also implicated this region during regulation of positive emotion [8] and during up-regulation of negative emotion (but see [5,38] for opposite findings).”

“The majority of these fMRI studies have typically scanned subjects who had been instructed to use reappraisal to diminish the negative affect elicited by stimuli of negative valence (Ochsner et al., 2002; Kim and Hamann, 2007; van Reekum et al., 2007; Goldin et al., 2008).”

“…frontal cortical regions (e.g., dlPFC; Banich, 2009; Mohanty et al., 2007; Silton et al., 2010) and is commonly associated with top-down control and monitoring functions involved with regulating emotions (Joormann and Stanton, 2016), including positive emotion regulation (Kim and Hamann, 2007).”

“aralleling the decision making literature, robust vlPFC activation s associated with efforts to both decrease or increase emotional esponding through reappraisal [65,76,77].”

“However, others find increases in more anterior regions of dlPFC when increasing negative emotion (Kim and Hamann, 2007).”

“…reviews of WM neuroimaging studies see Owen et al., 2005; Nee et al., 2013, for explicit emotional regulation studies see Ochsner et al., 2004; Kim and Hamann, 2007; Diekhof et al., 2011], suggesting that Frontiers in Human Neuroscience www.frontiersin.org March 2013 | Volume 7 | Article 93 |…”

“…of these prefrontal structures during emotion regulation, accompanied by attenuation of the amygdala throughout a variety of tasks and stimulus material (Kim and Hamann, 2007 ; Lévesque et al., 2003; Ochsner et al., 2004 ; Ochsner and Gross, 2005 ; Ohira et al., 2006 ; Phan et al., 2005).”

“One investigation of reappraisal of positive emotion demonstrated that increasing positive emotion also recruits the vmPFC (Kim and Hamann, 2007).”

“Although not as often studied, regulation of positive emotions also seems to involve “top-down” prefrontal inhibition, although perhaps involving different subcortical regions, such as ventral striatum.(113) Lieberman et al(114) and others(115) have also described a form of “unintentional self-regulation” or labeling…”

“Furthermore, recent meta-analyses support the view that the VLPFC/IFG is involved in language and semantic processes during emotion regulation (Kohn et al., 2014; Messina et al., 2015).”

“…between PFC regions and subcortical networks related to emotional responding (Beauregard et al., 2001; Ochsner et al., 2004a,b; Kalisch et al., 2005; Phan et al., 2005; Urry et al., 2006; Eippert et al., 2007; Kim and Hamann, 2007; van Reekum et al., 2007; Goldin et al., 2008; Wager et al., 2009).”

“The role of the amygdala in processing of emotion is well documented (Garavan, Pendergrass, Ross, Stein, & Risinger, 2001; Hamann, Ely, Hoffman, & Kilts, 2002; Hamann & Mao, 2002; Kim & Hamann, 2007).”

“Taken together these findings fit with prior studies implicating the lateral PFC in reappraisal (Kim & Hamann, 2007; Ochsner et al., 2002, 2004a; Phan et al., 2005) and the mPFC in distancing in particular (Kalisch et al., 2005; Ochsner et al., 2004b).”

“First, valence effects on ACC activity might have been confounded with arousal effects, since the latter have not been controlled (negative stimuli tend to be more arousing than positive: Canli et al., 1998, 2001; Garavan et al., 2001; Kim and Hamann, 2007).”

“Mostly using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), neuroimaging studies have implicated lateral ventral, ventromedial, dorsomedial, and dorsolateral regions of prefrontal cortex (PFC) when using reappraisal to decrease (Banks et al., 2007; 2001; Beauregard et al., 2001; Bechara, 2004; Eippert et al., 2007; Gol…”

“Particularly, it is one of the key prefrontal areas implicated in cognitive control of emotion mechanisms [59] such as reappraisal (including the reinterpretation of the negative situation and distancing one’s self from aversive stimuli) and distraction [15,16,60,61].”

“Other studies have shown that activity in these circuits may be modulated by cognitive function [21,21–23] and by voluntary attempts to control one’s affective reaction to emotional stimuli [24–31].”

“…of investigating emotion regulation exist and the most commonly used consists in asking participants to voluntary enhance or decrease emotion generated by a stimulus (e.g. Beauregard, Levesque, & Bourgouin, 2001; Kim & Hamann, 2007; Ochsner & Gross, 2005; Ochsner et al., 2004; Ohira et al., 2006).”

“In the non-specific reappraisal studies, distancing techniques were sometimes indicated through instructions or post-task feedback (Harenski et al., 2009; Kim and Hamann, 2007).”

“The role of the amygdala in emotion processing is well documented, and both positive and negative emotional processing is correlated to the amygdale (Garavan et al., 2001; Kim and Hamann, 2007).”

“The present results converge with previous studies that ave examined effects of reappraisals that both increase and ecrease unpleasant emotion in the same study (Eippert et l., 2007; Kim and Hamann, 2007; Ochsner et al., 2004; rry et al., 2006, 2009; van Reekum et al., 2007).”

“Similarly, regulating emotional responses to negative stimuli engages right MFG (Ochsner et al., 2004; Eippert et al., 2007; Kim and Hamann, 2007; Hayes et al., 2010) to suppress emotion-related activity in the amygdala (Kohn et al.”

“Previous studies implementing both reappraisal goals and directly contrasting the up-and downregulation of emotion on a whole-brain level seem to support this idea and do not report changes in amygdala activity (Urry et al. 2006; Kim and Hamann 2007; Opitz et al. 2012).”

“, 2001) and is especially relevant for emotion regulation (Ochsner et al., 2002; Phan et al., 2005; Kim and Hamann, 2007; Wager et al., 2008).”

“In actuality, the two computer characters were pre-programmed agents randomly assigned to either include or exclude the real participant from the game.”

“Also, because negative emotions often have connections with poor physical health (Kim & Hamann, 2007; Koenig, Larson, & McCullough, 2001; McCullough, Hoyt, Larson, Koenig, & Thoresen, 2000), we predicted a modest positive correlation between Disappointment and Anger with God and physical symptoms…”

“…OFC when suppressing as compared to maintaining negative emotions as varied as anxiety resulting from the anticipation of shocks, sadness , and viewing aversive images (Harenski & Hamann, 2006; Kalisch et al., 2005; Kim & Hamann, 2007; Levesque et al., 2003; Ochsner, 2004; Phan et al., 2005).”

“…of the studies on " reappraisal " , or the conscious inhibition of affective responses by cognitive reinterpretation , have observed increased rIFC (Kim and Hamann, 2007; Ochsner et al., 2004) and when it has been measured, activity in rIFC is typically associated with decreased limbic activity…”

“…to have been carried out earlier, when instructions simply to suppress one’s reaction to the stimulus were common (Beauregard et al., 2001; Lévesque et al., 2003; Kalisch et al., 2006; Ohira et al., 2006; Kim and Hamann, 2007; logistic regression on time of publication, z = 2.5, p = 0.01).”

“The DLPFC is perhaps the most commonly reported area in emotion regulation studies using reappraisal (Beauregard et al. 2001; Ochsner et al. 2004; Urry et al. 2006; Eippert et al. 2007; Kim and Hamann 2007; Delgado et al. 2008; Goldin et al. 2008; Staudinger et al. 2009).”

“Several other studies replicate the basic finding of increased LPFC, VLPFC, DMPFC, and dACC (though not all with the left-lateralization in the prefrontal cortex) and decreased amygdala and MOFC during reappraisal ( Kim & Hamann, 2007; Ochsner et al., 2004; Phan et al., 2005).”

“…the intensity of negative feelings as indicated by subjective ratings (e.g. Ochsner et al., 2002), peripheral physiological measures of negative affect (e.g. Gross 1998a) and activation of brain regions related to the processing of salient stimuli such as the amygdala (e.g. Kim and Hamann 2007).”