Emotion regulation capacity lacks a shared neural signature

Abstract Cognitive reappraisal refers to changing how one thinks about a situation to alter its emotional impact. It is central to well-being 1 and engages prefrontal regulatory circuits 2 , prompting the assumption that their activity reflects a person’s capacity to regulate emotions 3–5 . Yet evidence for this assumption remains inconclusive and has not been established at scale. Here we analysed 40 task-based functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) datasets in a preregistered consortium with 2,175 participants and show that three widely used indicators of reappraisal capacity—trait questionnaires, task-based affective ratings and amygdala down-regulation—do not converge on a common core. Moreover, none of the three indicators showed the expected association with canonical prefrontal regulatory circuits. Trait questionnaires showed no detectable neural associations across the brain and task-based affective ratings were instead associated with responses in the amygdala and sensorimotor cortices. At the process level, canonical control circuits were engaged during both emotion generation and reappraisal, challenging their presumed specificity for emotion regulation. These findings caution against using activation in putatively regulatory brain regions to infer how well a person regulates emotions, with implications for neural biomarkers, interventions and psychoeducation that link emotion regulation difficulties to specific regional brain deficits.

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Publication Details

Journal
Nature
Published
2026-10-28
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-11203-1
Citations
1
Primary Topic
Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
4.13
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article

Emotion regulation capacity lacks a shared neural signature

Silvia U. Maier, Christine Stelzel, Harry A. Fagan, Nils Kohn et al.
1 citations
Nature
Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
4.13
article

Emotion regulation capacity lacks a shared neural signature

Silvia U. Maier, Christine Stelzel, Harry A. Fagan, Nils Kohn, Emma Tupitsa, Christoph Scheffel, Juan Verdejo‐Román, Michael Gaebler, Stephan Nebe, Stephanie Nicole Lyn Schmidt, Wojciech Łukasz Dragan, Valerie L. Jentsch, Trevor Steward, Ben J. Harrison, Maital Neta, Johanna Maria Kissler, Anissa Benzait, Steve Heinke, Maurizio Sicorello, Laura Müller‐Pinzler, Lena Hofhansel, Andrzej Sokołowski, Denise Dörfel, Matthias Burghart, Kaoru Nashiro, Stella Berboth, Mara Mather, John L. Graner, David Sören Stolz, Agar Marín‐Morales, Rosa Steimke, Carmen Morawetz, Christopher G. Davey, U. Habel, Linlin Yan, Carien M. van Reekum, Monika Folkierska-Żukowska, Magdalena Sandner, Peter J. Gianaros, Susanne Erk, Simón Guendelman, Kevin S. LaBar, Michèle Wessa, Isabel Dziobek, Judith Karina Daniels, Thomas E. Kraynak, Satja Mulej Bratec, John Powers, Kateri Mcrae A, Anne Gärtner, Nick Doren, Birgit Derntl, Jordan Pierce, Kersten Diers, Nathan T. M. Huneke, Lena M. Paschke, Franziska Weinmar, Christian J. Merz, Christian Sorg, Henrik Walter, Guillén Fernández, Jungwon Min, Jenny Zaehringer, Sang Hee Kim
article en
1 citations

Abstract

Abstract Cognitive reappraisal refers to changing how one thinks about a situation to alter its emotional impact. It is central to well-being 1 and engages prefrontal regulatory circuits 2 , prompting the assumption that their activity reflects a person’s capacity to regulate emotions 3–5 . Yet evidence for this assumption remains inconclusive and has not been established at scale. Here we analysed 40 task-based functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) datasets in a preregistered consortium with 2,175 participants and show that three widely used indicators of reappraisal capacity—trait questionnaires, task-based affective ratings and amygdala down-regulation—do not converge on a common core. Moreover, none of the three indicators showed the expected association with canonical prefrontal regulatory circuits. Trait questionnaires showed no detectable neural associations across the brain and task-based affective ratings were instead associated with responses in the amygdala and sensorimotor cortices. At the process level, canonical control circuits were engaged during both emotion generation and reappraisal, challenging their presumed specificity for emotion regulation. These findings caution against using activation in putatively regulatory brain regions to infer how well a person regulates emotions, with implications for neural biomarkers, interventions and psychoeducation that link emotion regulation difficulties to specific regional brain deficits.

Nature
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (US), University of Nebraska–Lincoln (US), University of Southern California (US), National Health Service (GB), Jagiellonian University (PL), University of Denver (US), Radboud University Nijmegen (NL), The University of Melbourne (AU), University of Groningen (NL), University of Pittsburgh (US), Duke University (US), Forschungszentrum Jülich (DE), Universidad de Granada (ES), German Cancer Research Center (DE), University of Bremen (DE), University of Basel (CH), University of Toronto (CA), University of Konstanz (DE), Universität Innsbruck (AT), Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (DE), Korea University (KR), Bielefeld University (DE), University of Zurich (CH), Heidelberg University (DE), TUM Klinikum (DE), Radboud University Medical Center (NL), Uniwersytet SWPS (PL), University of Maribor (SI), Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (DE), International Psychoanalytic University Berlin (DE), GGZ Drenthe (NL), Central Institute of Mental Health (DE), Max Planck Institute for Human Development (DE), Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (DE), Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law (DE), Stanford Medicine (US), University Medical Centre Mannheim (DE), University of Southampton (GB), Medizinische Fakultät Mannheim (DE), Deutsches Zentrum für Psychische Gesundheit (DE), Center for Interdisciplinary Digital Sciences (DE), Centro de Investigación Mente, Cerebro y Comportamiento (ES), Technical University of Munich (DE), University of Reading (GB), Freie Universität Berlin (DE), Technische Universität Dresden (DE), Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin (DE), University of Tübingen (DE), RWTH Aachen University (DE), Ruhr University Bochum (DE), University of Lübeck (DE), Stanford University (US)
Good health and well-being
Openalex Percentile: Top 5%
Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
4.13
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