Differential roles of dorsal and ventral anterior congulate and medial prefrontal cortex in cognitive emotion regulation

Abstract

A rapidly growing neuroimaging literature has provided extensive data on the neural systems implicated in cognitive emotion regulation. Functional imaging studies significantly contribute to the identification of the cognitive processes that underlie different types of emotion regulation such as attentional distraction and cognitive reappraisal. In this article, I review imaging studies of emotion regulation and aim to identify common and differential neural mechanisms supporting down-regulation of negative emotions through self-distraction and cognitive reappraisal. Quantitative meta-analysis of neuroimaging findings revealed overlapping activation in dorsal anterior cingulate (ACC) and dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) for reappraisal and self-distraction as well as distraction-specific engagement of ventral ACC and mPFC. These results are discussed on the basis of recent findings that implicate dorsal ACC/mPFC in detection of emotional conflict and appraisal of emotional stimuli and ventral ACC/mPFC in inhibition of processing of emotional distracters. The influence of three other factors on regulation-related brain activation is explored. Finally, limitations of this meta-analysis and hypotheses for future research are presented.