Shared and unique neural correlates of reappraisal generation and implementation

Abstract

Abstract Cognitive reappraisal is an effective emotion regulation strategy that involves changing the meaning of an emotional event to alter one’s emotional experience. Experimental studies have identified two dissociable subprocesses within reappraisal: the generation of candidate reappraisals (reappraisal generation) and the elaboration on a reappraisal to change emotion (reappraisal implementation). We examined the shared and unique neural correlates of these two reappraisal subprocesses. Participants ( N = 45) completed the validated GenImp task while fMRI BOLD data was collected. In this task, participants viewed emotional images and, in separate steps, generated possible reappraisals and then implemented those reappraisals to feel better. Both generation and implementation engaged executive and semantic networks, while generation preferentially recruited ventral semantic pathways supporting conceptual analysis and flexible meaning construction. In contrast, implementation involved greater engagement of dorsal and self-referential regions supporting attentional control, elaboration, and emotional modulation, accompanied by stronger Executive Control Network – Default Mode Network (DMN) anticorrelation and DMN suppression. Together, these findings highlight a functional shift during reappraisal, starting with flexible semantic construction (generation), and then to top-down regulatory control (implementation), illuminating how executive, semantic, and self-referential systems dynamically interact to achieve successful emotion regulation in cognitive reappraisal.