IMPAIRED DECLARATIVE MEMORY FOR EMOTIONAL MATERIAL FOLLOWING BILATERAL AMYGDALA DAMAGE IN HUMANS

Everyday experience suggests that highly emotional events are often th e most memorable, an observation supported by psychological and pharma cological studies in humans. Although studies in animals have shown th at nondeclarative emotional memory (behaviors associated with emotiona l situations) may be impaired by lesions of the amygdala, Little is kn own about the neural underpinnings of emotional memory in humans, espe cially in regard to declarative memory (memory for facts that can be a ssessed. verbally). We investigated the declarative memory of two rare patients with selective bilateral amygdala damage. both subjects show ed impairments in long-term declarative memory for emotionally arousin g material. The data support the hypothesis that the human amygdala no rmally enhances acquisition of declarative knowledge regarding emotion ally arousing stimuli.