Functional neuroimaging techniques have been widely used to probe the neural substrates of facial emotion processing in healthy people. However, findings are largely inconsistent across studies. Here, we introduce a new technique termed activation network mapping to examine whether heterogeneous functional magnetic resonance imaging findings localize to a common network for emotion processing. First, using the existing method of activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis, we showed that individual-brain-based reproducibility was low across studies. Second, using activation network mapping, we found that network-based reproducibility across these same studies was higher. Validation analysis indicated that the activation network mapping-localized network aligned with stimulation sites, structural abnormalities and brain lesions that disrupt facial emotion processing. Finally, we verified the generality of the activation network mapping technique by applying it to another cognitive process, that is, rumination. Activation network mapping may potentially be broadly applicable to localize brain networks of cognitive functions.

功能神经成像技术已被广泛用于探索健康人面部情绪处理的神经基质。然而，各项研究的结果在很大程度上不一致。在这里，我们引入了一种称为激活网络映射的新技术，以检查异质功能磁共振成像结果是否定位于用于情感处理的公共网络。首先，使用现有的激活可能性估计荟萃分析方法，我们表明基于个体大脑的可重复性在各个研究中都很低。其次，使用激活网络映射，我们发现这些相同研究中基于网络的再现性更高。验证分析表明，激活网络映射局部网络与破坏面部情绪处理的刺激部位、结构异常和脑损伤相一致。最后，我们通过将激活网络映射技术应用于另一个认知过程（即反思）来验证其通用性。激活网络映射可能广泛适用于定位认知功能的大脑网络。