A voxel based diffusion tensor analysis demonstrates white matter pathways involved in emotion regulation

The goal of this study was to investigate the human brain networks that are involved in emotion regulation. To this end, a voxel based diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) analysis (VBA) was used. 20 healthy, female subjects between 18 and 55 years were scanned. These subjects were subdivided in two groups based on their emotion regulation strategy: affective/experiental vs cognitive/analytical. DTI data sets were acquired on a 3T scanner with 64 diffusion weighted images, a resolution of 2x2x2 mm3 and a b-value of 900 s/mm2. All data sets were aligned to a DTI atlas with a non-rigid coregistration algorithm. After anisotropic smoothing with a kernel of 3 mm, the FA values were compared between both subject groups in every voxel. Clusters of at least 10 voxels with a p