$re = '/\\\\textbf{([^}]*)}/m';
$str = '\\textbf{1 + 1} \\begin{center} \\textbf{some text in here:} \\end{center} and \\textbf{2} etc';
$subst = "\1";
$result = preg_replace($re, $subst, $str);
echo "The result of the substitution is ".$result;
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php