A recent study has uncovered ways that the brain is affected by verbally labeling emotional stimuli. This study has implications for understanding how talk therapy may affect the brain and why specifically verbal expression impacts the way the participant reacts to both positive and negative stimuli.

Researchers know that talking about their past allows people relief in processing past experiences. Recent research served to help uncover the mechanisms that explain the effectiveness of talk therapy, and provides implications to assist in further research on therapy styles.. In a 2007 study, Lieberman et al. used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to discover the relationship between affect labeling (i.e., putting feelings into words) and activity in sections of the brain dedicated to emotions.

In the study, thirty participants were given 10 trials each of 6 tasks. The tasks were labeling emotional facial expressions, matching emotional facial expressions, observing emotional facial expressions, labeling the gender of facial images, matching the gender of facial images, and matching shapes.

As they performed each of the tasks, researchers used fMRI to examine the subjects’ brains. The researchers believed that if affect labeling affects emotional reactivity to negative stimuli, the fMRI would indicate that activity was decreased in the amygdala.

The results showed that observing an emotional stimulus and also labeling that emotion significantly diminished the activity in the amygdala. The tasks of observing without verbal labeling, such as simply observing emotional facial expressions or labeling a non-emotional stimulus showed comparatively less alteration in the activity shown in the amygdala.

There were indications that the activity in the right vetrolateral prefrontal cortex pointed to a possible neural mechanism. When mediated by the medial prefrontal cortex, the right vetrolateral prefrontal cortex’s activity appears to have decreased effects on the amygdala.

The study gives initial insight into how talk therapy helps alleviate emotional distress. Additional study is needed to understand how the brain, and specifically the amygdala, is affected by having people experience and label their reaction to negative stimuli. Future research could also examine activity in the limbic system while participants are involved in psychotherapy.

The research gives therapists insight into why talking through experiences and emotions is more effective than simply thinking about them. Further use of fMRI technology may help therapists also identify how to use other forms of therapy to affect areas of the brain.