Foreign language modulates neural responses to instructed fear: a neuroimaging study in bilinguals

The use of a foreign language has been shown to modulate emotional processing in bilinguals and has been associated with reduced emotional reactivity. A previous psychophysiological study investigating fear conditioning in bilinguals showed that receiving instructions on threat contingencies in L2 led to a decreased fear response compared to L1, suggesting that L2 use may reduce the effect of fear conditioning. However, no neuroimaging study to date has investigated the neural correlates underlying this effect. In this study, across two experiments, we investigated the L2 effect on neural response to instructed fear. In Experiment 1, half of Spanish/English bilinguals received fear instructions in their native language (L1, Spanish) and the other half in their second language (L2, English). Region-of-interest and whole-brain analyses showed significantly greater activation in regions associated with threat appraisal in L1 group compared to L2 group, including the bilateral anterior cingulate cortex and bilateral nucleus accumbens, suggesting that fear response is attenuated in L2. Experiment 2 extended these results, showing that in Spanish/Catalan bilinguals, the bilingualism type (unbalanced vs. balanced) modulated instructed fear responses in right nucleus accumbens, dorsal anterior cingulate, and pregenual anterior cingulate, with unbalanced bilinguals showing higher reactivity to threat condition in their L1 compared to balanced bilinguals. These findings provide the first neuroimaging evidence that instructed fear learning is modulated by language context and the pattern of language use.