Emotion Regulation : Functional neuroimaging studies of cognitive reappraisal

Abstract: The importance of investigating Emotion Regulation (ER) may be self-evident, given that emotions have a substantial impact on our daily lives. ER encompasses set of processes that people go through in order to cultivate their feelings that arise at the moment and produce some response. Brain-imaging studies of ER have broadly focused on examining cognitive strategies, such as reappraisal, in order to understand underlying variables that contribute to the development of this particular process of emotions. The main focus in this paper was to summarize some of the observation done by functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) on neural processes underlying cognitive reappraisal. Furthermore, the paper will discuss some of these experiments that have been made through the last 15 years in the field where indications have been somewhat confusing when it comes to certain aspects of presented data, especially in comparison with other studies. Finally, a brief overview and some of the significant contributions, such as a process model of ER, to the field of ER have been presented and discussed. Cognitive reappraisal has been shown to effectively down-regulate subjective emotional experience. Even though many studies have been performed in measuring brain-activity when engaging in cognitive reappraisal, a unified and accepted agreement has yet not been found. In broader terms, brain-responses when engaging in cognitive reappraisal seem to operate in a particular manner where different parts of prefrontal and parietal cortex execute control over subcortical regions, such as amygdala.