A domain-general brain network underlying emotional and cognitive interference processing: evidence from coordinate-based and functional connectivity meta-analyses

• Published in: Brain Structure and Function Vol. 223; no. 8; pp. 3813 - 3840
• Main Authors: Chen, Taolin, Becker, Benjamin, Camilleri, Julia, Wang, Li, Yu, Shuqi, Eickhoff, Simon B., Feng, Chunliang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.11.2018; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedicine; Brain - physiology; Brain Mapping; Brain research; Cell Biology; Cognition - physiology; Cognitive ability; Conflict, Psychological; Cortex (cingulate); Emotions; Emotions - physiology; Executive Function - physiology; Frontal gyrus; Humans; Information processing; Laboratories; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Medical imaging; Mental disorders; Meta-analysis; Neural networks; Neural Pathways - physiology; Neurology; Neurosciences; Original Article; Paradigms; Stroop Test; Superior parietal lobule; Large-scale network; Functional decoding; Resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC); Emotional interference; Meta-analytic connectivity modeling (MACM); Cognitive control; Activation likelihood estimation (ALE); Meta-analysis
• ISSN: 1863-2653; 1863-2661; 1863-2661; 0340-2061
• DOI: 10.1007/s00429-018-1727-9

The inability to control or inhibit emotional distractors characterizes a range of psychiatric disorders. Despite the use of a variety of task paradigms to determine the mechanisms underlying the control of emotional interference, a precise characterization of the brain regions and networks that support emotional interference processing remains elusive. Here, we performed coordinate-based and functional connectivity meta-analyses to determine the brain networks underlying emotional interference. Paradigms addressing interference processing in the cognitive or emotional domain were included in the meta-analyses, particularly the Stroop, Flanker, and Simon tasks. Our results revealed a consistent involvement of the bilateral dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, anterior insula, left inferior frontal gyrus, and superior parietal lobule during emotional interference. Follow-up conjunction analyses identified correspondence in these regions between emotional and cognitive interference processing. Finally, the patterns of functional connectivity of these regions were examined using resting-state functional connectivity and meta-analytic connectivity modeling. These regions were strongly connected as a distributed system, primarily mapping onto fronto-parietal control, ventral attention, and dorsal attention networks. Together, the present findings indicate that a domain-general neural system is engaged across multiple types of interference processing and that regulating emotional and cognitive interference depends on interactions between large-scale distributed brain networks.