Cognitive and neural mechanisms of emotional memory

A highly adaptive aspect of human memory is the enhancement of explicit, co nsciously accessible memory for emotional stimuli. Recent findings from neu roimaging, neuropsychological, drug and neural stimulation studies indicate that emotional stimuli engage specific cognitive and neural mechanisms tha t enhance explicit memory. Emotional arousal influences memory via factors that act during memory encoding (attention and elaboration) and factors tha t modulate memory consolidation. Across studies, the amygdala has been cons istently implicated as playing a key role in enhancing explicit memory for both pleasant and unpleasant emotional stimuli through modulation of encodi ng and consolidation processes.