Abstract
Building upon the existing literature on emotional memory, the present review examines emerging evidence from brain imaging investigations regarding four research directions: (1) Social Emotional Memory, (2) The Role of Emotion Regulation in the Impact of Emotion on Memory, (3) The Impact of Emotion on Associative or Relational Memory, and (4) The Role of Individual Differences in Emotional Memory. Across these four domains, available evidence demonstrates that emotion- and memory-related medial temporal lobe brain regions (amygdala and hippocampus, respectively), together with prefrontal cortical regions, play a pivotal role during both encoding and retrieval of emotional episodic memories. This evidence sheds light on the neural mechanisms of emotional memories in healthy functioning, and has important implications for understanding clinical conditions that are associated with negative affective biases in encoding and retrieving emotional memories.
Highlights
Research using functional brain imaging techniques in humans has established that the impact of emotion on cognition is subserved by complex interactions of functional networks and systems involved in various processes, which include basic emotion processing, perception, memory, and cognitive control
This review focuses on evidence identified from functional neuroimaging studies in healthy humans investigating the role of the amygdala (AMY) and its interaction with memory-related medial temporal lobe (MTL) brain regions, as well as the role of other brain regions, during both encoding and retrieval of long-term emotional episodic
The present review discussed findings from brain imaging studies investigating the neural correlates of encoding and retrieving emotional memories, and how they are modulated by factors linked to social information, emotion regulation, associative/relational memory, and individual differences in personality traits, sex, and age
Summary
Florin Dolcos1,2,3* , Yuta Katsumi, Mathias Weymar, Matthew Moore, Takashi Tsukiura and Sanda Dolcos1,3*. Building upon the existing literature on emotional memory, the present review examines emerging evidence from brain imaging investigations regarding four research directions: (1) Social Emotional Memory, (2) The Role of Emotion Regulation in the Impact of Emotion on Memory, (3) The Impact of Emotion on Associative or Relational Memory, and (4) The Role of Individual Differences in Emotional Memory. Across these four domains, available evidence demonstrates that emotion- and memory-related medial temporal lobe brain regions (amygdala and hippocampus, respectively), together with prefrontal cortical regions, play a pivotal role during both encoding and retrieval of emotional episodic memories.
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