doi:10.1017/S0140525X11000446 The brain basis of emotion: A meta-analytic review Kristen A. Lindquist Department of Neurology, Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital/Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Charlestown, MA 02129, and Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138 lindqukr@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu http://www.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/≏lindqukr/ Tor D. Wager Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309 tor.wager@colorado.edu http://www.psych.colorado.edu/≏tor/ Hedy Kober Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06519 hedy.kober@yale.edu http://medicine.yale.edu/psychiatry/people/hedy_kober.profile Eliza Bliss-Moreau California National Primate Research Center, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, and Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of California, Davis, CA 95616 eblissmoreau@ucdavis.edu http://www.elizablissmoreau.com/EBM/home.html Lisa Feldman Barrett Department of Psychology, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, and Departments of Radiology and Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School/ Massachusetts General Hospital/Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Charlestown, MA 02129 l.barrett@neu.edu http://www.affective-science.org/ Abstract: Researchers have wondered how the brain creates emotions since the early days of psychological science. With a surge of studies in affective neuroscience in recent decades, scientists are poised to answer this question. In this target article, we present a meta-analytic summary of the neuroimaging literature on human emotion. We compare the locationist approach (i.e., the hypothesis that discrete emotion categories consistently and specifically correspond to distinct brain regions) with the psychological constructionist approach (i.e., the hypothesis that discrete emotion categories are constructed of more general brain networks not specific to those categories) to better understand the brain basis of emotion. We review both locationist and psychological constructionist hypotheses of brain – emotion correspondence and report meta-analytic findings bearing on these hypotheses. Overall, we found little evidence that discrete emotion categories can be consistently and specifically localized to distinct brain regions. Instead, we found evidence that is consistent with a psychological constructionist approach to the mind: A set of interacting brain regions commonly involved in basic psychological operations of both an emotional and non-emotional nature are active during emotion experience and perception across a range of discrete emotion categories. Keywords: Discrete emotion; emotion experience; emotion perception; meta-analysis; neuroimaging; psychological construction 1. Introduction William James framed the question of emotion – brain cor- respondence when he wrote, “of two things concerning the emotions, one must be true. Either separate and special centres, affected to them alone, are their brain-seat, or else they correspond to processes occurring in the motor and sensory centres already assigned” (James 1890/1998, p. 473). In this target article, we statistically summarize the last 15 years of neuroimaging research on emotion in an attempt to determine which of these alternatives is correct. We examine the utility of two different models of emotion that have each existed since the beginning of psychology. BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (2012) 35, 121–202 # Cambridge University Press 2012 0140-525X/12 $40.00 121