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The anticipation of control over aversive events in life is relevant for our mental health. Insights on the underlying neural mechanisms remain limited. We developed a new functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) task that uses auditory stimuli to explore the neural correlates of (1) the anticipation of control over aversion and (2) the processing of aversion. In a sample of 25 healthy adults, we observed increased neural activation in the medial prefrontal cortex (ventromedial prefrontal cortex and rostral anterior cingulate cortex), other brain areas relevant for reward anticipation (ventral striatum, brainstem [ventral tegmental area], midcingulate cortex), and the posterior cingulate cortex when they anticipated control over aversion compared with anticipating no control (1). The processing of aversive sounds compared to neutral sounds (2) was associated with increased neural activation in the bilateral posterior insula. Our findings provide evidence for the important role of medial prefrontal regions in control anticipation and highlight the relevance of conceiving the neural mechanisms involved within a reward‐based framework., The anticipation of control over aversive events in life is relevant for our mental health. In healthy adults, control anticipation over aversive sounds is associated with increased neural activation in the medial prefrontal cortex and other brain areas relevant for reward anticipation.

Objective Catatonia is a psychomotor syndrome characterized by concomitant emotional, behavioural and motor symptoms. In many cases clinical symptoms disappear almost immediately with administration of lorazepam, which acts on GABAA receptors. Methods Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) we investigated prefrontal activation patterns during emotion processing in catatonic patients with and without lorazepam in a double-blind study design. For emotional stimulation the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) was used. BOLD-signals were determined using regions of interest (ROI) and were statistically compared between groups. Results For negative emotional pictures lorazepam induced higher signal decreases in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) in catatonic patients than in healthy subjects resulting in a regularization of activity patterns comparable to healthy subjects with placebo. Conclusions Results indicate disturbances in the functioning of OFC in catatonia. GABAergic modified emotion regulation with decreased inhibition of affective stimuli could lead to the intense emotions reported by many catatonic patients. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.