Cognitive regulation of emotion has been proven to be effective to take control the emotional responses. Some cognitive models have also been proposed to explain the neural mechanism that underlies this process. However, some characteristics of the models are still unclear, such as whether the cognitive regulation will be spontaneously employed by participants implicitly. The present study recruited the fMRI experiment to focus on the discomfort induced by viewing aversive pictures, and the emotional self-regulation during picture viewing. By using the dynamic causal modeling (DCM), 50 putative models of brain functional networks were constructed, one optimal model that fitted the real data best won the comparison from the candidates. As a result, the optimal model suggests that both the ventral striatum (VS)-centric bottom-up and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC)-centric top-down regulations are recruited for self-regulation on negative emotions. The DLPFC will exert modulatory influence on the VS only when the VS fails to suppress the induced emotions by self-inhibition.

中文翻译：

---

厌恶情绪自我调节的动态因果模型

情绪的认知调节已被证明可以有效地控制情绪反应。还提出了一些认知模型来解释构成该过程基础的神经机制。然而，模型的某些特征仍然不清楚，例如认知调节是否会被参与者暗中采用。本研究招募了功能磁共振成像实验，专注于观看厌恶图片引起的不适以及图片浏览过程中的情绪自我调节。通过使用动态因果模型（DCM），构建了50种大脑功能网络的推定模型，其中一种最适合真实数据的最优模型赢得了候选人的比较。结果是，最佳模型表明，以腹侧纹状体（VS）为中心的自下而上和以背外侧前额叶皮层（DLPFC）为中心的自上而下的规章均被招募用于自我调节负性情绪。仅当VS无法通过自我抑制来抑制诱发的情感时，DLPFC才会对VS施加调制影响。