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Randomized Controlled Trial
. 2022 Jun 15;43(9):2898-2910.
doi: 10.1002/hbm.25824. Epub 2022 Mar 9.

The causal role of the bilateral ventrolateral prefrontal cortices on emotion regulation of social feedback

Sijin Li  1   2 , Hui Xie  3 , Zixin Zheng  2 , Weimao Chen  2 , Feng Xu  4 , Xiaoqing Hu  3   5 , Dandan Zhang  1   2   6   7
Affiliations
Randomized Controlled Trial

The causal role of the bilateral ventrolateral prefrontal cortices on emotion regulation of social feedback

Sijin Li et al. Hum Brain Mapp. .

Abstract

The ventrolateral prefrontal cortices (VLPFC) are crucial regions involved in voluntary emotion regulation. However, the lateralization of the VLPFC in downregulating negative emotions remains unclear; and whether the causal role of the VLPFC is generalizable to upregulating positive emotions is unexplored. This study used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to examine the causal relationship between the left/right VLPFC and social emotion reappraisal. One hundred and twenty participants were randomly assigned to either active (left and right VLPFC groups, n = 40/40) or sham (vertex, n = 40) TMS groups. Participants were instructed to passively receive social feedback or use reappraisal strategies to positively regulate their emotions. While the subjective emotional rating showed that the bilateral VLPFC facilitated the reappraisal success, the electrophysiological measure of the late positive potential (LPP) demonstrated a more critical role of the right VLPFC on social pain relief (decreased LPP amplitudes) and social reward magnification (enhanced LPP amplitudes). In addition, the influence of emotion regulation on social evaluation was found to be mediated by the memory of social feedback, indicating the importance of memory in social behavioral shaping. These findings suggest clinical protocols for the rehabilitation of emotion-regulatory function in patients with affective and social disorders.

Keywords: emotion regulation; reappraisal; social feedback; transcranial magnetic stimulation; ventrolateral prefrontal cortex.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest in relation to the subject of this study.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Experimental procedures. (a) The four phases of the experiment. (b) Illustration of one trial in the emotion regulation task. Due to copyright, the person in the sample image is replaced by the graduate student from the research group. rTMS, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Illustration of TMS electric fields of the three TMS groups (left VLPFC, vertex, and right VLPFC). The color represents the electric field strength, scaled from 0 (blue) to the individual maximums (red). TMS, transcranial magnetic stimulation; VLPFC, ventrolateral prefrontal cortices
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Behavioral results. (a) Subjective emotional feeling. (b) Recalled feedback. (c) Favorability rating. For each dependent variable shown here, participants reported their responses on a 19‐point scale (−9 for extremely unhappy or dislike, 9 for extremely happy or like). Bars represent SE of the mean. *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001. TMS, transcranial magnetic stimulation; VLPFC, ventrolateral prefrontal cortices
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
Mean amplitudes of the LPP component in positive, neutral, and negative feedback conditions. The ERP data were averaged across electrodes of Pz, P3, P4, CP1, and CP2. The LPP was measured as mean amplitude within the time window of 1–4 s post feedback presentation. *p < .05. LPP, late positive potential; TMS, transcranial magnetic stimulation; VLPFC, ventrolateral prefrontal cortices
FIGURE 5
FIGURE 5
Mediating effect of memory on emotion regulation and favorability of positive, negative, and neutral feedback in the reappraisal condition. The mediating models were tested using (a) the self‐reported emotional rating, or (b) the LPP amplitude as an indicator of emotion regulation effect. Unstandardized coefficients are shown as mean (SE). Statistically significant pathways are indicated using solid lines. *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001. LPP, late positive potential
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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