The neural bases of expressive suppression : A systematic review of functional neuroimaging studies

Expressive suppression refers to the inhibition of emotion-expressive behavior (e.g., facial expressions ofemotion). Although it is a commonly used emotion regulation strategy with well-documented consequences forwell-being, little is known about its underlying mechanisms. In this systematic review, we for the first timesynthesize functional neuroimaging studies on the neural bases of expressive suppression in non-clinical pop-ulations. The 12 studies included in this review contrasted the use of expressive suppression to simply watchingemotional stimuli. Results showed that expressive suppression consistently increased activation of frontoparietalregions, especially the dorsolateral and ventrolateral prefrontal cortices and inferior parietal cortex, butdecreased activation in temporo-occipital areas. Results regarding the involvement of the insula and amygdalawere inconsistent with studies showing increased, decreased, or no changes in activation. These mixed findingsunderscore the importance of distinguishing expressive suppression from other forms of suppression and high-light the need to pay more attention to experimental design and neuroimaging data analysis procedures. Wediscuss these conceptual and methodological issues and provide suggestions for future research.CC BY 4.0Correspondence to: Department of Psychology, Stanford University, 450 Jane Stanford Way, 94305 Stanford, CA, USA. E-mail address: sikka@stanford.edu (P. Sikka).Funding: This work was supported by the Finnish Foundations’ Post Doc Pool, Finland and the Emil Aaltonen Foundation, Finland (to P.S.).