Memories for emotional events constitute the core of our personal history, yet little is known about the neurocognitive mechanisms that mediate the influence of emotion on memory in the human brain. The proposed research uses modern cognitive neuroscience techniques to elucidate how emotion processing networks interface with memory systems and executive control regions to enhance both explicit (declarative) and implicit (non-declarative) forms of human memory. To achieve this aim, behavioral and functional magnetic resonance imaging studies of healthy adults will be combined with behavioral and intracranial event-related potential studies of epileptic patients during memory encoding tasks for stimuli that vary in their emotional salience. We hypothesize that emotional retention advantages in explicit memory depend on interactions between the amygdala and medial temporal lobe memory system (MMS), and that these effects will also involve extrastriate, parietal, and prefrontal cortex (RFC) regions according to executive functions related to perception/attention, working memory, and semantic processing. We further predict that emotional retention advantages in implicit memory, as measured by perceptual priming, depend on interactions between the amygdala and sensory neocortex in a modality-specific manner. Finally, we expect that conscious attempts to regulate one's emotions have a greater impact on explicit than implicit memory and are implemented by influences of cognitive control regions of the PFC and anterior cingulate on activity in the amygdala and MMS as a function of the effectiveness and type of regulation strategy deployed. The proposed research has specific clinical implications for understanding how epilepsy affects brain structures that form memories for emotional experiences, and the extent to which epileptic patients can use cognitive strategies to alter their emotional memories. This research has relevance for public health more broadly in that it can help understand how emotional memories become dysfunctional in a variety of neurologic disorders. New insights into these clinical conditions will be gained by providing a detailed account of the dynamic interplay between emotion, memory, and executive control systems in the human brain.
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