Amygdala and cortical substrates of subjective well-being: pathways to reduced aggression in emotional processing contexts

Abstract Subjective well-being has been implicated in the regulation of aggressive behavior, potentially through its influence on mood and neural processing. However, the underlying neuropsychological mechanisms remain insufficiently understood. This study aimed to elucidate the neural correlates of subjective well-being and examine its potential association with aggression using a two-part investigation. The first involved a functional MRI study (n = 111), focusing on amygdala responses to emotional face processing and broader cortical activation related to subjective well-being. The second involved a larger behavioral sample (n = 627) to assess the relationship between subjective well-being and aggression, as well as the mediating role of emotional variables. Behaviorally, subjective well-being was inversely associated with anger, hostility, and overall aggression, and with negative affect, anxiety, and depression. Mediation analyses demonstrated significant effects of mood (negative affect, depression, and anxiety) in linking subjective well-being to aggression. Neuroimaging results revealed that individuals with higher subjective well-being displayed attenuated amygdala reactivity to fearful faces. Additionally, intersubject representational similarity analyses demonstrated that individuals with similar subjective well-being levels shared more convergent neural activation patterns in visual (e.g., occipital pole, lateral occipital cortex, middle temporal gyrus, and fusiform) and the emotional network (e.g., insula), but not within the amygdala. These findings provide novel insights into the neuropsychological mechanisms linking well-being to emotional regulation and aggression.