Reappraising social emotions: the role of inferior frontal gyrus, temporo-parietal junction and insula in interpersonal emotion regulation

Abstract

Previous studies have reported the effect of emotion regulation (ER) strategies on both individual and social decision-making, however, the effect of regulation on socially driven emotions independent of decisions is still unclear. In the present study, we investigated the neural effects of using reappraisal to both up- and down-regulate socially driven emotions. Participants played the Dictator Game (DG) in the role of recipient while undergoing fMRI, and concurrently applied the strategies of either up-regulation (reappraising the proposer's intentions as more negative), down-regulation (reappraising the proposer's intentions as less negative), as well as a baseline "look" condition. Results showed that regions responding to the implementation of reappraisal (effect of strategy, that is, "regulating regions") were the inferior and middle frontal gyrus, temporo parietal junction and insula bilaterally. Importantly, the middle frontal gyrus activation correlated with the frequency of regulatory strategies in daily life, with the insula activation correlating with the perceived ability to reappraise the emotions elicited by the social situation. Regions regulated by reappraisal (effect of regulation, that is, "regulated regions") were the striatum, the posterior cingulate and the insula, showing increased activation for the up-regulation and reduced activation for down-regulation, both compared to the baseline condition. When analyzing the separate effects of partners' behavior, selfish behavior produced an activation of the insula, not observed when subjects were treated altruistically. Here we show for the first time that interpersonal ER strategies can strongly affect neural responses when experiencing socially driven emotions. Clinical implications of these findings are also discussed to understand how the way we interpret others' intentions may affect the way we emotionally react.

Keywords: decision-making; interpersonal emotion regulation; mentalizing; social interactions.

Figure 1

(A) A timeline of the events for each trial. (B) Emotion regulation training results before the Dictator Game ensured that subjects were able to apply the strategies. (C) Emotion ratings clarified the emotions primarily evoked by the task. (D) Subjects reported their emotions changing according to both strategies.

Figure 2

The main effect of strategy returned significant activations for MFG, IFG, and temporo-parietal activations. Overall these regions responded more to up- and down-regulation conditions as compared to look, independent of offers. Of these regions the IFG activity correlated with ERQ, and the Insula with the perceived change in emotion as an effect of strategy in the debriefing questionnaire.

Figure 3

Regions modulated by reappraisal-mentalizing (down\ look\ up), returned regions showing a linear increase: the striatum, the posterior cingulate and the insula. Notably, insular activity in this contrast positively correlated with the level of anger when treated selfishly (debriefing).

Figure 4

To understand how different types of behavior affect brain responses, separate analyses were computed for the three levels of offer shown (very unfair, moderately fair, fair). Disjunction analyses clarified that insula and other regions differentiated selfish from altruistic behavior.

Figure 5

Dynamic causal models. In squares the “Regulating regions” and in circles the “Regulated regions.” Three models were tested. Results showed that a model considering the IFG and TPJ acting as modulators and the insula as the regulated regions is the one that better explains the data.