Prefrontal involvement in the regulation of emotion: convergence of rat and human studies.
Emotion regulation is a process by which we control when and where emotions are expressed. Paradigms used to study the regulation of emotion in humans examine controlled responses to emotional stimuli and/or the inhibition of emotional influences on subsequent behavior. These processes of regulation of emotion trigger activation of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and inhibition of the amygdala. A similar pattern of activation is seen in rodents during recall of fear extinction, an example of emotional regulation. The overlap in circuitry is consistent with a common mechanism, and points toward future experiments designed to bridge human and rodent models of emotion regulation.
Quirk
Gregory J
GJ
Department of Physiology, Ponce School of Medicine, P.O. Box 7004, Ponce, Puerto Rico 00732.
Beer
Jennifer S
JS
D000679:Amygdala / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology; D000818:Animals; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005108:Extinction, Psychological / Q000502:physiology; D005239:Fear / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D023421:Models, Animal; D009433:Neural Inhibition / Q000502:physiology*; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology*; D051381:Rats