Fig. 2

Negative feedback model in emotional awareness and vagal function, and proposed neural pathway. Conscious processing of emotion (emotional awareness) has a negative feedback loop through the vagal function [6, 7, 83]. Emotional experience is consciously processed into awareness, and vagal tone is accelerated, after which emotional arousal is regulated. The neural pathway for the feedback process is assumed to involve cortical areas such as ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and especially medial prefrontal cortex, insula, limbic system structures such as anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), amygdala and hypothalamus, and the autonomic nervous system. The anterior insula and ACC have a functional relationship for the emotional processing (see also in the text). Various other pathways, a more direct connection for example, could be included in the processing, but this Figure was simplified for a brief explanation of the model