use strict;
my $str = '%ORIGINAL
\\caption{ Some \\{ \\}text
some other text }
%...
\\env2{ \\caption{ Other text } }';
my $regex = qr/\\caption{((?:[^\\{}]|\\.)*)}/p;
my $subst = '\\\\caption{\\\\scriptsize\\\\textbf{$1}}';
my $result = $str =~ s/$regex/$subst/rg;
print "The result of the substitution is' $result\n";
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 Perl, please visit: http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html