A dual-fMRI investigation of interpersonal emotion regulation: predicting strategy selection and implementation success from effective brain connectivity.

Inter-personal emotion regulation (ER) is the social process whereby one individual (a “Regulator”) assists another (the “Target”) in regulating their emotional state. Despite the importance of inter-personal ER for maintaining well-being, very little is known about the neurocognitive mechanisms that support this process. In the present study, we performed functional magnetic resonance imaging on 23 pairs of Regulators and Targets whilst they engaged in a novel task designed to capture the two stages of inter-personal ER–the Regulator’s selection of an ER strategy to recommend and its subsequent implementation by an affiliate Target. This paradigm allowed us to investigate the brain systems supporting both stages of the inter-personal process and identify personality characteristics that might influence the inter-personal dynamic through these neurocognitive mechanisms. Results revealed largely overlapping patterns of brain response during Regulators’ selections and Targets’ implementation of ER strategies, encompassing medial and lateral prefrontal and temporo-parietal cortices. Moreover, by applying behavioural Dynamic Causal Modelling to the behavioural and brain data acquired during the task, we identified patterns of effective connectivity among these brain regions from which we could accurately estimate Regulators’ selections and their effectiveness in down-regulating Targets’ emotional responses. Lastly, certain network connections and the effectiveness of Regulators’ selections in down-regulating Targets’ emotion states were associated with failure- and decision-related action control – dissociable styles of self-directed (intra-personal) ER.