Dual-fMRI reveals that extrinsic and intrinsic inter-personal emotion regulation is underpinned by a common functional brain network.

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 simultaneously (dual-fMRI) whilst they interacted with one another on a novel task designed to emulate inter-personal ER. This allowed us to (1) investigate the brain systems supporting both the extrinsic recommendations made by Regulators and their subsequent intrinsic implementation by Targets, (2) capture any inter-personal brain-behaviour contingencies during these constituent cognitive processes, and (3) identify personality characteristics that might influence the inter-personal dynamic through these neurocognitive mechanisms. This revealed largely overlapping patterns of brain response during the extrinsic and intrinsic aspects of inter-personal ER, encompassing medial and lateral prefrontal and temporo-parietal cortices. Moreover, by applying a novel input-state-output modelling technique to the behavioural and brain data acquired during these interactions, we identified a pattern of effective connectivity among these brain regions from which we could accurately estimate both the recommendations made by Regulators and their effectiveness in down-regulating Targets’ emotional responses. Lastly, certain network connections were associated with failure- and decision-related action control – dissociable styles of self-directed (intra-personal) ER. We suggest these findings reveal a neurocognitive mechanism that supports both extrinsic and intrinsic inter-personal ER through simulation and embodiment processes.