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Abstract:
Abstract: We report a functional neuroimaging study of
emotional memory. The stimuli are sets of words and sentences
designed to test separate effects of emotional content and context
on word recall. Methods: Twelve right-handed male subjects were
asked to silently read a selection of emotional and neutral
sentences. There were then two forced-choice recall tasks in which
word pairs were presented and subjects were required to press a
button to indicate which word they had seen before at encoding. The
order of recall tasks and of stimulus presentation within each
condition were randomised across subjects. Results: recall of
emotional words was significantly better than for neutral words,
and emotional word recall was correlated with significant
activation in left anterior and posterior cingulate cortex, left
middle temporal gyrus, and left amygdala. Additionally, recall of
neutral words was enhanced if these words had been initially seen
in an emotional context. Recall of neutral words from emotional
sentences was correlated with significant activation in left
parahippocampal gyrus, which was not present when neutral words
were recalled from neutral contexts. This is the first time that
emotional content and context have been separated in a neuroimaging
experiment, and that neural correlates of both encoding and recall
of emotional stimuli have been examined with fMRI. Implications for
understanding the neurobiology of interactions between emotion and
memory are discussed.
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