Anxiety-related frontocortical activity is associated with dampened stressor reactivity in the real world

Negative affect is a fundamental dimension of human emotion. When extreme, it contributes to a variety of adverse outcomes--from physical and mental illness to divorce and premature death. Mechanistic work in animals and neuroimaging research in humans has begun to reveal the broad contours of the neural circuits governing negative affect, but the relevance of these discoveries to everyday distress remains incompletely understood. Here we used a combination of approaches--including neuroimaging assays of threat anticipation and perception, >10,000 momentary assessments of emotional experience, and large-scale automated analyses of regional connectivity and co-activation--to demonstrate that individuals showing greater activation in a cingulo-opercular circuit during an anxiety-eliciting laboratory paradigm experience lower levels of stressor-dependent distress in their daily lives. Subcortical activation was not significantly related to momentary negative affect. These observations provide a framework for understanding the neurobiology of negative affect in the laboratory and in the real world. STATEMENT OF RELEVANCEAnxiety, sadness, and other negative emotions are hallmarks of the human condition. When extreme, they contribute to a variety of adverse outcomes--from physical and mental illness to divorce and premature death--pointing to the need to develop a better understanding of the underlying brain circuitry. Recent work has begun to reveal the neural systems governing negative affect, but the relevance of these tantalizing laboratory discoveries to the real world has remained unclear. Here we used a combination of brain imaging and smartphone-based survey techniques to demonstrate that individuals evincing greater activation in a cingulo-opercular circuit during an anxiety-promoting laboratory task experienced reduced distress in the moments following exposure to daily stressors. These observations provide new insights into the brain systems most relevant to negative emotion in everyday life, underscoring the importance of more recently evolved cortical association areas.