The role of prefrontal cortex in emotion regulation: A more naturalistic magnetoencephalographic study

Emotion regulation is aimed to control emotional states through various strategies, among which reappraisal and suppression have been extensively studied up to date. Nevertheless, physiological correlates of this process are still debatable, since findings on both brain and peripheral activity are contradictory. In the present work, we were first to investigate neural sources and inter-subject correlations (a measure of synchronized neural activity) during natural watching of neutral and negative one-minute videos, regulation via reappraisal and suppression strategies utilizing magnetoencephalography. In the results, first, free watching of negative videos led to a higher average inter-subject correlation compared to the other conditions, including the regulatory ones, which indicates higher neural synchrony between subjects. Second, we also revealed an increased inter-subject correlation during usage of both reappraisal and suppression strategies, but in relation to the specific sources of neural activity. A number of identified sources were located in the prefrontal cortex, which potentially implies the involvement of this area in emotion regulation, regardless of applied strategies. In summary, different neural patterns (especially, frontal) of synchrony in relation to negative emotion experience and regulation processes using naturalistic stimuli were demonstrated by means of magnetoencephalographic neuroimaging.