Event-related activation in the human amygdala associates with later memory for individual emotional experience

The role of the amygdala in enhancing declarative memory for emotional expe riences has been investigated in a number of animal, patient, and brain ima ging studies. Brain imaging studies, in particular, have found a correlatio n between amygdala activation during encoding and subsequent memory. Becaus e of the design of these studies, it is unknown whether this correlation is based on individual differences between participants or within-subject var iations in moment-to-moment amygdala activation related to individual stimu li. In this study, participants saw neutral and negative scenes and indicat ed how emotionally intense they found each scene. Separate functional magne tic resonance imaging responses in the amygdala for each scene were related to the participants' report of their experience at study and to performanc e in an unexpected memory test 3 weeks after scanning. The amygdala had the greatest response to scenes rated as most emotionally intense. The degree of activity in the left amygdala during encoding was predictive of subseque nt memory only for scenes rated as most emotionally intense. These findings support the view that amygdala activation reflects moment-to-moment subjec tive emotional experience and that this activation enhances memory in relat ion to the emotional intensity of an experience.