Marc D. Lewis, Rebecca M. Todd

To speak of cognitive regulation versus emotion regulation may be misleading.  However, some forms of regulation are carried out by executive processes,  subject to voluntary control, while others are carried out by“automatic”  processes that are far more primitive. Both sets of processes are in constant  interaction, and that interaction gives rise to a stream of activity that is  both cognitive and emotional. Studying the brain helps us understand these  reciprocal regulatory influences in some detail. Cortical activities regulate  subcortical activities through executive modulation of prepotent appraisals and  emotional responses. Subcortical systems regulate the cortex by tuning its  activities to the demands or opportunities provided by the environment. Cortical  controls buy us time, as needed for planning and intelligent action. Subcortical  controls provide energy, focus, and direction, as needed for relevant  emotion-guided behaviour. We review the neural processes at work in both  directions of regulatory activity, looking at the anterior cingulate cortex  (ACC) as a hub of cortical systems mediating downward control, and discussing  limbic, hypothalamic, and brainstem systems
that mediate upward control. A  macrosystem that displays both directions of control includes the ACC and the  amygdala within a feedback circuit whose features vary with clinical-personality  differences. Developmental changes in ACC-mediated self-regulation support  advances in directed attention, response inhibition, and self-monitoring.  Developmental changes in amygdala-mediated self-regulation involve the  compilation of meanings that direct thought and behaviour, thus consolidating  individual differences over the lifespan.
In this way, the capacity to exert  voluntary control develops alongside the accumulation of associations
that  trigger the responses that demand control. The balance between these  developmental progressions has
implications for personality formation and  mental health.