Abstract
In general, emotion is known to enhance memory processes. However, the effect of emotion on associative memory and the underling neural mechanisms remains largely unexplored. In this study, we explored brain activation during an associative memory task that involved the encoding and retrieval of word and face pairs. The word and face pairs consisted of either negative or positive words with neutral faces. Significant hippocampal activation was observed during both encoding and retrieval, regardless of whether the word was negative or positive. Negative and positive emotionality differentially affected the hemodynamic responses to encoding and retrieval in the amygdala, with increased responses during encoding negative word and face pairs. Furthermore, activation of the amygdala during encoding of negative word and neutral face pairs was inversely correlated with subsequent memory retrieval. These findings suggest that activation of the amygdala induced by negative emotion during encoding may disrupt associative memory performance.
Highlights
The ability to learn and remember new associations between previously unrelated information is an important aspect of declarative memory
A recent review on memory and emotion has demonstrated that emotion may enhance memory processes that occur at all stages, including encoding, storage, and retrieval [11], we previously reported that negative emotionality does not necessarily promote good memory performance and associated hippocampal activation [12]
Behavioral results During the fMRI protocol, 15 healthy volunteers performed a novel face-emotional word paired associate task consisted of ‘encoding’, in which subjects were asked to remember pairs of neutral face and emotional words, and ‘control’ and ‘retrieval’, in which subjects were asked to indicate the word that was previously paired with that face (Fig. 1; see Methods for details)
Summary
The ability to learn and remember new associations between previously unrelated information is an important aspect of declarative memory. A recent review on memory and emotion has demonstrated that emotion may enhance memory processes that occur at all stages, including encoding, storage, and retrieval [11], we previously reported that negative emotionality does not necessarily promote good memory performance and associated hippocampal activation [12]. This discrepancy may be due to procedural differences. The difference between memory for gist and memory for detail can be more pronounced for negative than for positive events [23]
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