T. Canli et al., Event-related activation in the human amygdala associates with later memory for individual emotional experience, J NEUROSC, 20(19), 2000, pp. NIL_10-NIL_14
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.