Emotional acceptance is an important emotion regulation strategy promoted by most psychotherapy approaches. We adopted the Activation Likelihood Estimation technique to obtain a quantitative summary of previous fMRI studies of acceptance and test different hypotheses on its mechanisms of action. The main meta-analysis included 13 experiments contrasting acceptance to control conditions, yielding a total of 422 subjects and 170 foci of brain activity. Additionally, sub-groups of studies with different control conditions (react naturally or focus on emotions) were identified and analysed separately. Our results showed executive areas to be affected by acceptance only in the subgroup of studies in which acceptance was compared to natural reactions. In contrast, a cluster of decreased brain activity located in the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC)/precuneus was associated to acceptance regardless of the control condition. These findings suggest that high-level executive cortical processes are not a distinctive feature of acceptance, whereas functional deactivations in the PCC/precuneus constitute its specific neural substrate. The neuroimaging of emotional acceptance calls into question a key tenet of current neurobiological models of emotion regulation consisting in the necessary involvement of high-level executive processes to actively modify emotional states, suggesting a complementary role for limbic portions of the default system.

Neurobiological Models of Emotion Regulation: a Meta-analysis of Neuroimaging Studies of Acceptance as an Emotion Regulation Strategy / Messina, Irene; Grecucci, Alessandro; Viviani, Roberto. - In: SOCIAL COGNITIVE AND AFFECTIVE NEUROSCIENCE. - ISSN 1749-5016. - 16:3(2021), pp. 257-267. [10.1093/scan/nsab007]

Neurobiological Models of Emotion Regulation: a Meta-analysis of Neuroimaging Studies of Acceptance as an Emotion Regulation Strategy

Messina, Irene;Grecucci, Alessandro;
2021-01-01

Abstract

Emotional acceptance is an important emotion regulation strategy promoted by most psychotherapy approaches. We adopted the Activation Likelihood Estimation technique to obtain a quantitative summary of previous fMRI studies of acceptance and test different hypotheses on its mechanisms of action. The main meta-analysis included 13 experiments contrasting acceptance to control conditions, yielding a total of 422 subjects and 170 foci of brain activity. Additionally, sub-groups of studies with different control conditions (react naturally or focus on emotions) were identified and analysed separately. Our results showed executive areas to be affected by acceptance only in the subgroup of studies in which acceptance was compared to natural reactions. In contrast, a cluster of decreased brain activity located in the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC)/precuneus was associated to acceptance regardless of the control condition. These findings suggest that high-level executive cortical processes are not a distinctive feature of acceptance, whereas functional deactivations in the PCC/precuneus constitute its specific neural substrate. The neuroimaging of emotional acceptance calls into question a key tenet of current neurobiological models of emotion regulation consisting in the necessary involvement of high-level executive processes to actively modify emotional states, suggesting a complementary role for limbic portions of the default system.
2021
3
Messina, Irene; Grecucci, Alessandro; Viviani, Roberto
Neurobiological Models of Emotion Regulation: a Meta-analysis of Neuroimaging Studies of Acceptance as an Emotion Regulation Strategy / Messina, Irene; Grecucci, Alessandro; Viviani, Roberto. - In: SOCIAL COGNITIVE AND AFFECTIVE NEUROSCIENCE. - ISSN 1749-5016. - 16:3(2021), pp. 257-267. [10.1093/scan/nsab007]
File in questo prodotto:
File Dimensione Formato  
2021 Grecucci Messina ACCEPTANCE 2021.pdf

accesso aperto

Descrizione: first online
Tipologia: Versione editoriale (Publisher’s layout)
Licenza: Creative commons
Dimensione 1.06 MB
Formato Adobe PDF
1.06 MB Adobe PDF Visualizza/Apri
nsab007.pdf

accesso aperto

Tipologia: Versione editoriale (Publisher’s layout)
Licenza: Creative commons
Dimensione 8.63 MB
Formato Adobe PDF
8.63 MB Adobe PDF Visualizza/Apri

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11572/292250
Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? 18
  • Scopus 37
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? 32
  • OpenAlex ND
social impact