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Cognitive strategies used in volitional emotion regulation include self-distraction and reappraisal (reinterpretation). There is debate as to what the psychological and neurobiological mechanisms underlying these strategies are. For example, it is unclear whether self-distraction and reappraisal, although distinct at a phenomenological level, are also mediated by distinct neural processes. This is partly because imaging studies on reappraisal and self-distraction have been performed in different emotional contexts and are difficult to compare. We have therefore investigated the neural correlates of self-distraction, as indexed by a thought suppression task, in an anticipatory anxiety paradigm previously employed by us to study reappraisal. Brain activity was measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging. We show that self-distraction recruits the left lateral prefrontal cortex. Based on a review of the existing data, we develop a process model of cognitive emotion regulation. The model posits that both self-distraction and reappraisal attenuate emotional reactions through replacement of emotional by neutral mental contents but achieve replacement in different ways. This is associated with a dependence of self-distraction on a left prefrontal production function, whereas reappraisal depends on a right prefrontal higher order monitoring process.

Original publication

DOI

10.1162/jocn.2006.18.8.1266

Type

Journal article

Journal

J Cogn Neurosci

Publication Date

08/2006

Volume

18

Pages

1266 - 1276

Keywords

Acoustic Stimulation, Adult, Anxiety, Brain, Brain Mapping, Cognition, Emotions, Female, Heart Rate, Humans, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Models, Biological, Neural Inhibition, Oxygen