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…”

“…neuroimaging data indicating that volitional up-regulation of positive emotion is subserved by increased activation in PFC, caudate, and putamen (Kim & Hamann, 2007), and studies demonstrating that a prefrontal-striatal pathway is involved in the regulation of substance craving (Kober et al.,…”

“…to regulation in women (e.g., Fujita, Diener, & Sandvik, 1991), but also to increase comparability with previous emotion regulation studies that also included women only (Kim & Hamann, 2007) and to avoid any potential sex differences that could have modulated the regulation effects of interest.”

“Results corresponding to the effects of unpleasant picture viewing and emotion regulation, irrespective of individual variation in personality traits, have been reported in a previous study ( Kim & Hamann, 2007 ).”

“With respect to laterality of amygdala function, an investigation of neural correlates of emotion regulation yielded differences between right- and left-sided amygdalae, the former being particularly active in response to positive stimuli (Kim and Hamann, 2007).”

“Low reappraisal results in low activity in PFC regions and in high amygdala activity (Ochsner et al., 2002, 2004; Kim and Hamann, 2007).”

“…to studies demonstrating that both increasing and decreasing negative affect via reappraisal is associated with increased activation in the posterior prefrontal cortex, dlPFC, and inferior parietal regions (Eippert et al., 2007; Kim & Hamann, 2007; Ochsner et al., 2004; van Reekum et al., 2007).”

“This reinterpretation variant of reappraisal has been successfully used to reduce negative emotion in similar functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) designs before (Ochsner et al., 2002, 2004b; Kim and Hamann, 2007; McRae et al., 2010).”

“…no conclusions can be drawn on the distinction between the two major emotion regulation mechanisms associated with REAP and ESUP, as extensively studied in neuroscience (Goldin, McRae, Ramel, & Gross, 2008; Kim & Hamann, 2007; Levesque et al., 2003; Ochsner et al., 2002, 2004; Phan, et al., 2005).”

“Regarding activation of the right MFG in the regulation block, an increase in neural activation of this region was reported previously during cognitive regulation of negative emotions [Kim and Hamann, 2007; McRae et al., 2010; Ochsner et al., 2002].”

“The dorsomedial PFC and ACC are typically involved in cognitive UPregulation of negative emotions (Eippert et al., 2007; Kim and Hamann, 2007; Ochsner et al., 2004) and other emotional tasks (Etkin et al., 2011; Fan et al., 2005; Han et al., 2009; Lang et al., 2011; Pessoa, 2008).”

“Further analysis of the BOLD response within this cingulate region revealed a trend for greater recruitment during the use of regulation strategies than natural responding, which is consistent with findings from previous emotion regulation studies (Staudinger et al, 2009 ; Eippert et al, 2007 ; Kim & Hamann, 2007 ; Ph…”

“The rIFG is recruited when participants downregulate negative emotions (Kim & Hamann, 2007; Ochsner et al., 2004) or overcome emotional distractions (Dolcos & McCarthy, 2006).”

“The presence of happy distracters only produced a significant RT slowing, along with greater DLPFC, amygdala, and accumbens activity, in BD-I relative to BD-II and HC, indicating greater emotional interference from happy distracters only in this group (38).”

“…2010; Somerville, Whalen, & Kelley, 2010; Masten et al., 2009; Wager, van Ast, et al., 2009; Wager, Davidson, Hughes, Lindquist, & Ochsner, 2008; Kim & Hamann, 2007; Kross, Egner, Ochsner, Hirsch, & Downey, 2007; Kalisch et al., 2006; Bishop, Duncan, Brett, & Lawrence, 2004; Eisenberger,…”

“Moreover, fathers of daughters exhibited a greater response in a region of the lateral OFC (BA 47) involved in emotion regulation, especially implicated in augmenting positive emotion (S. H. Kim & Hamann, 2007).”

“This finding is in agreement with two previous reports (Eippert et al., 2007; Kim and Hamann, 2007).”

“In keeping with numerous prior studies (Ochsner et al., 2002, 2004; Urry et al., 2006; Kim and Hamann, 2007; van Reekum et al., 2007a; McRae et al., 2010), on reappraisal trials participants were told to, ‘re-interpret the possible antecedents, outcomes and/or reality of the events you see in such…”

“Although a general inhibitory control process may suppress future imaginings of any valence, there may also be valence-specific effects akin to emotion regulation (79).”

“…simultaneously reducing activation in areas associated with emotion processing, including the amygdala, medial orbitofrontal cortex, lateral orbitofrontal cortex and the nucleus accumbens (NAc; Kalisch, 2009; Kim & Hamann, 2007; Lévesque et al., 2003; Ochsner et al., 2004; Schaefer et al., 2002).”

“, 2010), as well as neural indicators of emotional responding (Schaefer et al., 2002; Ochsner et al., 2004; Kim and Hamann, 2007).”

“…the valence of the emotional stimuli to either upregulate positive (e.g., Kim and Hamann, 2007) and negative emotions (e.g., Eippert et al., 2007; Kim and Hamann, 2007; Ochsner et al., 2004b; Urry et al., 2006), or to downregulate positive (e.g., Kanske et al., 2011; Kim and Hamann, 2007) and…”

“…perceptual insight and may be related to the encoding of these experiences into long-term memory (Ludmer et al., 2011) because it is a crucial node in the emotion network that has been implicated in a variety of emotional functions (Kim and Hamann, 2007; Paton et al., 2006; Sass et al., 2014).”

“…neural responses to emotional events (DanGlauser & Gross, 2011; Demaree et al., 2004; Dillon and LaBar, 2005; Driscoll et al., 2009; Jackson et al., 2000; Kim and Hamann, 2007; Lee et al., 2009; Mauss et al., 2007; Moser et al., 2006; Ochsner et al., 2004; Ray et al., 2010; Sheppes et al., 2009).”

“The cognitive strategy of reappraisal significantly lowered subjects’ self-reported feelings of intensity, a finding that has been reported by several studies regarding both negative [6,22,23] and positive [11,24,25,26] feelings.”

“The savor positive condition, which corresponded to typical increase positive instructions on emotion regulation tasks (e.g., Kim and Hamann 2007), instructed participants to imagine experiencing the positive event occurring in the image and to focus on enjoyable aspects of the image and their own…”

“In particular, it is a primary modulation target when individuals are regulating responses to rewarding stimuli (Roitman et al., 2005; Kim and Hamann, 2007; Kober et al., 2010), and it tends to be more active when viewing positive relative to negative and neutral stimuli (Seo et al., 2014).”

“Recently, researchers investigated whether FUS of the right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG), a brain area associated with emotional regulation (112), could affect the mood of healthy participants in a randomized, placebocontrolled, double-blind study (113).”

“Neither does the DERS-P assess the up-regulation or the down-regulation of positive emotions, which are distinct processes (Kim & Hamann, 2007).”

“blood flow) in sub regions of the PFC is induced by attempts of active cognitive coping with a negative affective stimulus, which would serve to reduce activity in the amygdala [23], [26], [28–30].”

“Expressive suppression attempts to limit, or exaggerate, the representation of emotion itself (Kim and Hamann 2007), whereas cognitive reappraisal seeks to alter the context in which the emotion-inducing stimulus is viewed and, in doing so, altering the emotional response (Ochsner et al. 2002).”

“…of emotion enhanced activity was found in the left insula and the left amygdala whereas the downregulation primarily recruited the right lateral and medial PFC as well as right parietal regions in line with previous findings (Eippert et al., 2007; Kim & Hamann, 2007; Ochsner et al., 2004).”

“, 2004), and some investigations have revealed stronger amygdala reactivity for positive compared to negative affect regulation (Kim and Hamann, 2007).”

“The site most commonly used for the treatment of depression is the left prefrontal cortex, which has been highlighted for its involvement in the regulation of positive and negative emotion [”

“This work has been extended recently by neuroimaging studies, which have begun to identify the brain regions recruited during the cognitive control of emotion and have emphasized the role of anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) regions, including their modulatory effects on limbic (e.g.,…”

“Since there were only two males, we restricted our final analyses to women in order to ensure a homogenous sample and avoid any effect of gender differences related to emotion regulation (Fujita, Diener, & Sandvik, 1991; Kim & Hamann, 2007).”

“attempting to decrease the experience of negative emotional responses (Kim and Hamann, 2007).”

“Functional connectivity between the amygdala and two other PFC regions involved in emotion regulation processes were also found to be affected by alcohol in the present study (Banks et al. 2007; Kim and Hamann 2007; Oshner et al. 2002).”

“…in the upregulation of positive versus negative emotions have both common and distinct components (Davidson & Irwin, 1999; Fossati et al., 2003; Kim & Hamann, 2007; Koush et al., 2019; Lane, Reiman, Ahern, Schwartz, & Davidson, 1997; Ochsner et al., 2012; Vrticka, Sander, & Vuilleumier, 2012;…”

“Similarly, experiments show that reappraisal can successfully increase the experience of positive emotion (Kim & Hamann, 2007) and reduce the experience of both negative (McRae, Ochsner, Mauss, Gabrieli, & Gross, 2008) and positive emotion (Kalokerinos, Greenaway, & Denson, 2015).”

“Urgency itself has been theorized to be related to multiple brain regions, including the medial, ventromedial, dorsolateral, and orbitofrontal regions (Levesque et al. 2003, 2004; Ochsner et al. 2004; Kim and Hamann 2007; Mak et al. 2009), the anterior cingulate cortex (Levesque et al.”

“53,54 In addition, the dlPFC has been implicated in anticipation or attention to emotional judgment, 55,56 suggesting that the connectivity between the amygdala and dlPFC may be important for emotional response and regulation.”

“Furthermore, a number of studies using electrophysiological and/ or functional neuroimaging techniques have reported consistently increased activity in the DLPFC under reappraisal conditions (modifying the intensity of emotional stimuli using cognitive strategies) (Ochsner et al. 2002; Kim and Hamann 2007).”

“…broadly, ER strategies can be considered a special type of cognitive control, engaging dorsolateral and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) as well as parietal areas involved in cognitive control (Kalisch, 2009; Kim & Hamann, 2007; Ochsner & Gross, 2005; Urry et al., 2006, Ochsner et al., 2012).”

“Interestingly, when regulating positive emotions, upregulation resulted in an increase in left and right ventral striatum activity [61].”

“…the present results are specific to the down-regulation of negative emotions, and relationships to up-regulation or positive emotions (e.g., (Kim & Hamann, 2007; Ochsner et al., 2004) remain to be explored, the findings help refine the definition of emotion regulation, and lend support to…”

“Furthermore, studies using electrophysiological and/or functional neuroimaging techniques have reported consistently increased activity in the dlPFC during reappraisal (Kim & Hamann, 2007; Ochsner, et al., 2004).”

“Consistent with this, VLPFC activity during effortful regulation is related to the successful downregulation and upregulation of affect to both negative and positive stimuli (12,35,36).”

“…is some evidence of coupling between the amygdala and either the prefrontal cortex or cingulate during emotion regulation [Blair et al., 2007; Delgado et al., 2008; Kim and Hamann, 2007; Ochsner et al., 2004; Phan et al., 2005], but functional connectivity studies cannot speak to directionality.”

“…a key node in the prefrontal cognitive control system (Urry et al., 2006; Johnstone et al., 2007; Delgado et al., 2008; Ochsner et al., 2012), the VMPFC is regarded essential in both cognitive control and emotional value integration during ER (S. H. Kim and Hamann, 2007; Winecoff et al., 2013).”

“Only women were included in order to avoid any potential sex differences that could have modulated the effects of interest (see e.g., Cahill, 2006; Kim and Hamann, 2007; Vrticka et al., 2012a,b). fMRI data from the same study were previously reported in Vrticka et al. (2011) and Vrticka et al.…”

“The ventral striatal region within the basal ganglia has been linked to the processing and regulation of positive emotions (Hamann and Mao, 2002; Kim and Hamann, 2007), while negative emotions are primarily processed in the medial prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortices (Etkin et al., 2011).”

“Participants completed an emotion regulation task (49) in the MRI scanner, which lasted for about 10 min.”

“, the prefrontal and parietal regions discussed above) (Buhle et al., 2014; Goldin et al., 2008; Kim and Hamann, 2007; Kohn et al., 2014; Ochsner et al., 2012).”

“Brain imaging studies have found common and distinct regions between positive and negative emotion regulation, suggesting that they involve common and distinct processes (Dörfel et al., 2014; Tsujimoto, 2022b; Kim & Hamann, 2007 ).”

“, 2008; see also Ochsner and Gross, 2005); however, the regions we reported overlap with those previously linked with emotion regulation (Phan et al., 2005; Harenski and Hamann, 2006; Ohira et al., 2006; Kim and Hamann, 2007).”

“Interestingly, some of the few existing studies seem to suggest that brain regions involved in the regulation of positive and negative emotions partly overlap [56]–[58].”

“Effective control of emotions by reappraisal strategies has been related to activation of the medial and lateral prefrontal areas (Ochsner et al. , 2002; Phan et al. , 2005; Kim et al. , 2007; Wager et al. , 2008), which prevent excessive experience of negative emotions (Urry et al. , 2009; Abler…”

“…PFC (mPFC), response inhibition and selection of information from memory implemented by ventrolateral PFC (VLPFC), and performance monitoring implemented by dorsal ACC (Kim & Hamann, 2007; Ochsner et al., 2002; Phan et al., 2005; see Buhle et al., 2013 and Diekhof et al., 2011 for meta-analyses).”

“The task design has been adapted from previous studies on emotion regulation using reappraisal (Ochsner et al., 2004b; Eippert et al., 2007; Kim & Hamann, 2007; Domes et al., 2010; Morawetz et al., 2016a).”

“…activity in the amygdala during fear extinction learning (Myers and Davis, 2006; Quirk et al., 2006), and conversely that training in emotional ‘ re-appraisal ’ of aversive stimuli leads to increased PFC activity and reduced amygdala activity (Eippert et al., 2007; Kim and Hamann, 2007).”

“, control) of negative affect, compared with positive affect, uniquely involves right-lateralized PFC regions (Kim and Hamann, 2007).”

“…regulation (Aron & Poldrack, 2005; Berkman et al., 2009; Chester & DeWall, 2014; Chikazoe et al., 2009; Cohen et al., 2013; Ernst et al., 2002; Kim & Hamann, 2007; Lieberman et al., 2007; McClure et al., 2004; Wager et al., 2008; see also Boggio et al., 2016), only a few studies have used…”

“…in limbic regions implicated in emotional experience, including the amygdala (Beauregard et al., 2001; Blair et al., 2007; Kanske et al., 2011; Kim and Hamann, 2007; Levesque et al., 2003; Mak et al., 2009; Ochsner et al., 2004, 2012; Ochsner and Gross, 2007; Phan et al., 2005; Phillips et…”

“A common finding in the studies that investigated increased negative emotional reactivity (Ochsner et al., 2004; Eippert et al., 2007; Kim and Hamann, 2007; Domes et al., 2010; Schulze et al., 2011; Lang et al., 2012) is elevated amygdala activation.”