Herz Rachel S, Eliassen James, Beland Sophia, Souza Timothy
Department of Psychology, Brown University, 89 Waterman Street, Providence, RI 02912, USA.
Neuropsychologia. 2004;42(3):371-8. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2003.08.009.
To assess past behavioral reports of the emotional distinctiveness of odor-evoked memories, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to compare regions of activation during recall triggered by olfactory and visual cues that were connected to a personally meaningful memory and a comparable control cue presented in olfactory and visual form. Five healthy right-handed females experienced both behavioral and fMRI memory testing. fMRI analyses indicated significantly greater activation in the amygdala and hippocampal regions during recall to the personally significant odor than any other cue, and behavioral responses confirmed that emotional responses were greatest to the personally meaningful odor. These findings provide convincing neurobiological evidence that the subjective experience of the emotional potency of odor-evoked memory is correlated with specific activation in the amygdala during recall and offers new insights into the affective organization of memory.
为了评估过去关于气味诱发记忆的情感独特性的行为报告，功能性磁共振成像（fMRI）被用于比较在由嗅觉和视觉线索触发的回忆过程中的激活区域，这些线索与个人有意义的记忆以及以嗅觉和视觉形式呈现的可比对照线索相关联。五名健康的右利手女性接受了行为和fMRI记忆测试。fMRI分析表明，在回忆与个人重要气味相关的线索时，杏仁核和海马区域的激活明显大于对任何其他线索的激活，并且行为反应证实对个人有意义的气味的情感反应最为强烈。这些发现提供了令人信服的神经生物学证据，即气味诱发记忆的情感效力的主观体验与回忆过程中杏仁核的特定激活相关，并为记忆的情感组织提供了新的见解。
