Neuron Article Prefrontal-Subcortical Pathways Mediating Successful Emotion Regulation

Although prefrontal cortex has been implicated in the cognitive regulation of emotion, the cortical-sub-cortical interactions that mediate this ability remain poorly understood. To address this issue, we identi-fied a right ventrolateral prefrontal region (vlPFC) whose activity correlated with reduced negative emotional experience during cognitive reappraisal of aversive images. We then applied a pathway-mapping analysis on subcortical regions to locate mediators of the association between vlPFC activity and reappraisal success (i.e., reductions in reported emotion). Results identified two separable pathways that together explained!50 % of the reported vari-ance in self-reported emotion: (1) a path through nu-cleus accumbens that predicted greater reappraisal success, and (2) a path through ventral amygdala that predicted reduced reappraisal success (i.e., more negative emotion). These results provide direct evidence that vlPFC is involved in both the genera-tion and regulation of emotion through different sub-cortical pathways, suggesting a general role for this region in appraisal processes