The neural basis of explicit and implicit emotion regulation: a coordinate-based meta-analysis

Emotion regulation (ER) is a transdiagnostic factor in psychopathology. However, research heavily dominates explicit emotion regulation, leaving implicit mechanisms poorly understood. We investigated whether explicit and implicit emotion regulation, conceptually differentiated by the explicitness of their regulatory goals, exhibit distinct neural signatures. We conducted a coordinate-based activation-likelihood estimation meta-analysis comprising 79 explicit (2961 subjects) and 29 implicit (1329 subjects) ER experiments among healthy subjects, utilizing a rigorous leave-one-out (LOO) sensitivity analysis to ensure spatial robustness. Explicit ER engaged left-lateralized frontoparietal network, robustly activating the inferior, superior, and middle frontal gyri, as well as the middle and superior temporal gyri. In contrast, implicit ER recruited a bilateral network involving subcortical integration hubs and emotional reactivity areas, specifically the insula, cingulate gyrus, caudate, and lentiform nucleus. Conjunction analyses revealed that shared neural engagement was limited primarily to the bilateral insula and right inferior frontal gyrus. Explicit ER recruits regions responsible for goal-directed behaviors while implicit ER targets regions related to emotion and affect processing. The difference between implicit and explicit emotion regulation may lie in the level of consciousness involved. This suggests that clinical interventions could be optimized by targeting these disparate networks.