Generalizable Neural Models of Emotional Engagement and Disengagement

Emotional reactivity to negative content profoundly impacts our mental well-being and is a hallmark of disorders characterized by emotion dysregulation. Traditional approaches have examined emotional responses and regulation in isolation, neglecting their temporal dynamics. Movie designs can capture both, in their natural progression throughout time, yet they pose complexity due to the mix of relevant and irrelevant information. To address these challenges and uncover general neural mechanisms of affect, we used dynamic predictive modeling across different narratives, emotional contexts, and participant groups. We analyzed two independent data sets containing different narratives of highly emotionally negative content and one neutral narrative during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Following fMRI scanning, individuals provided continuous subjective annotations of emotional intensity throughout these movie clips. Patterns of functional connectivity predicting group response of emotional disengagement in negative movies generalized to diverse narratives and participants, demonstrating specificity to negative content. This prediction involved widespread between-network connections increases. Conversely, emotional engagement generalized across narratives and participants, including neutral contexts, with a less intense emotional intensity induction. Prediction for engagement was marked by widespread between-network connections decreases. Activation analyses distinguished brain regions for disengagement in the default network and engagement in the dorsal attention and visual network. These patterns remained consistent across studies and emotional contexts, revealing generic engagement and disengagement responses even in less emotional movie contexts. These findings demonstrate that movies elicit behavioral and neural responses that contribute to understanding the ecological generalizability of emotional cinematic experiences. Together this work helps to better understand cognitive and neural mechanisms underpinning engagement in and disengagement from emotionally evocative narratives. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.