IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nathum/v7y2023i5d10.1038_s41562-022-01502-8.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Neuronal activity in the human amygdala and hippocampus enhances emotional memory encoding

Author

Listed:
  • Salman E. Qasim

    (Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai)

  • Uma R. Mohan

    (Surgical Neurology Branch, NINDS, National Institutes of Health)

  • Joel M. Stein

    (University of Pennsylvania)

  • Joshua Jacobs

    (Columbia University
    Columbia University)

Abstract

Emotional events comprise our strongest and most valuable memories. Here we examined how the brain prioritizes emotional information for storage using direct brain recording and deep brain stimulation. First, 148 participants undergoing intracranial electroencephalographic (iEEG) recording performed an episodic memory task. Participants were most successful at remembering emotionally arousing stimuli. High-frequency activity (HFA), a correlate of neuronal spiking activity, increased in both the hippocampus and the amygdala when participants successfully encoded emotional stimuli. Next, in a subset of participants (N = 19), we show that applying high-frequency electrical stimulation to the hippocampus selectively diminished memory for emotional stimuli and specifically decreased HFA. Finally, we show that individuals with depression (N = 19) also exhibit diminished emotion-mediated memory and HFA. By demonstrating how direct stimulation and symptoms of depression unlink HFA, emotion and memory, we show the causal and translational potential of neural activity in the amygdalohippocampal circuit for prioritizing emotionally arousing memories.

Suggested Citation

  • Salman E. Qasim & Uma R. Mohan & Joel M. Stein & Joshua Jacobs, 2023. "Neuronal activity in the human amygdala and hippocampus enhances emotional memory encoding," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 7(5), pages 754-764, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nathum:v:7:y:2023:i:5:d:10.1038_s41562-022-01502-8
    DOI: 10.1038/s41562-022-01502-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-022-01502-8
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41562-022-01502-8?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Haoxin Zhang & Ivan Skelin & Shiting Ma & Michelle Paff & Lilit Mnatsakanyan & Michael A. Yassa & Robert T. Knight & Jack J. Lin, 2024. "Awake ripples enhance emotional memory encoding in the human brain," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-13, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nathum:v:7:y:2023:i:5:d:10.1038_s41562-022-01502-8. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.