Neural basis of human emotion and memory(Session<Brain Imaging of Emotion>,The 22nd Symposium on Life Information Science)

Abstract

Emotional valence of memory content has been shown to influence episodic memory. On the other hand, it has been known that people can remember better when mood (emotional context) at memory retrieval is matched to mood at encoding. In the present study, we used positron emission tomography (PET) with [^<15>O]H_2O to investigate brain areas sensitive to the effect of emotional context congruency between the encoding and retrieval settings. Behavioral data showed significant difference between negative emotional context congruent and incongruent condition. For PET data, main effect for emotional context congruency was found in the left parahippocampal gyrus, the right lateral prefrontal area and the right lateral occipital cortex. Our data add further evidence to the notion of the interaction between emotion and episodic memory.