Reappraising social emotions: the role of dorso-lateral prefrontal cortex and temporo-parietal junction in emotional regulation

Emotion regulation strategies such as reappraisal, the cognitive strategy by which the valence of a situation is changed by reinterpreting it, provide a means to modulate our affective response to various stimuli. In this study, we investigated the effect of both up and down regulation using reappraisal on socially elicited emotions in a task called the Dictator Game. After being instructed on how to reappraise via formal training, 21 participants were scanned using fMRI as they played the Dictator Game while applying the strategies of up and down regulation as well as a baseline look condition. Participants perceived that their self-rated emotions were modulated according to the strategy. At the neural level, the effect of reappraisal demonstrated significant activations of the dorso-lateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) when receiving unfair amounts. Notably, the DLPFC correlated with emotion regulation abilities as measured by the Emotional Regulation test, and the TPJ with the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, a measure of empathic concern. Importantly, the effects of modulation were evident in the insula, the cingulate cortex, the striatum and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Overall these regions showed less activation for down- and more activation for up-regulation. Interestingly, further analyses showed that the DLPFC together with TPJ modulated the insula, whose activity positively correlated with the ability to up regulate and negatively with the ability to down regulate the emotions. These results support and extend previous findings regarding brain regions implicated in affective processing and demonstrate for the first time the possibility of down- and up-regulating socially elicited emotions when the context requires it.