Human Lateral Frontal Pole Contributes to Control over Emotional Approach-Avoidance Actions

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Social Neuroscience

Background:

• Emotional behavior regulation is vital for social interaction.
• Anterior prefrontal cortex (aPFC) plays a role in emotional regulation, alongside cognitive functions.
• Understanding the neural basis of emotional regulation is crucial for treating social-emotional disorders.

Purpose of the Study:

• To anatomically define aPFC regions involved in regulating emotional action tendencies.
• To explore the structural pathways underlying emotional action regulation.
• To identify neural correlates of emotional regulation for potential therapeutic interventions.

Main Methods:

• Task-based functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in human participants.
• Diffusion-weighted imaging and resting-state connectivity analysis.
• Probabilistic tractography to assess structural connectivity between brain regions.

Main Results:

• Task-based fMRI identified specific aPFC territories regulating responses to emotional faces.
• Connectivity analysis localized these regions to the lateral frontal pole (FPl).
• Structural connectivity strength between FPl and the amygdala accounted for 10%-20% of variation in emotional regulation ability.

Conclusions:

• The lateral frontal pole (FPl) is a novel neural element in emotional action regulation.
• Structural connectivity between FPl and the amygdala, potentially via the ventral amygdalofugal bundle, implements emotional regulation.
• These findings advance models of human action control and offer targets for treating emotion regulation disorders.