Carnegie Mellon University, Pennsylvania, United States.
Neuropsychologia. 2011 Oct;49(12):3201-12. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2011.07.021. Epub 2011 Jul 31.
Previous research has shown that emotional information aids conflict resolution in working memory (Levens & Phelps, 2008). Using a Recency-probes working memory (WM) paradigm, Levens and Phelps found that positive and negative emotional stimuli reduced the amount of interference created when information that was once relevant conflicted with currently relevant information, suggesting that emotional information facilitates interference resolution in WM. To determine what regions of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and temporal lobes are critical to the influence of emotional stimuli on interference resolution, we conducted a Recency-probes emotion paradigm with right and left unilateral frontal and temporal lobe lesion patients. The frontal lobe lesion patient group comprised individuals with unilateral ventral and dorsal PFC lesions. The temporal lobe lesion patient group comprised individuals with lesions of the amygdala and surrounding structures. Results indicate that when the left amygdala is damaged, emotional facilitation of interference resolution is absent (equal emotional and neutral interference levels), when the right orbital frontal cortex (OFC) is damaged, in contrast, emotional interference resolution is impaired (emotional interference levels are higher than neutral levels are). Based on these unique patterns we propose specific contributions for these regions in the emotional facilitation of interference resolution in WM.
先前的研究表明，情绪信息有助于工作记忆（WM）中的冲突解决（Levens & Phelps，2008）。Levens 和 Phelps 使用近因探测 WM 范式发现，正性和负性情绪刺激减少了曾经相关的信息与当前相关的信息冲突时产生的干扰量，表明情绪信息有助于 WM 中的干扰解决。为了确定前额叶皮层（PFC）和颞叶的哪些区域对情绪刺激对干扰解决的影响至关重要，我们对单侧额颞叶损伤的患者进行了近因探测情绪范式。额颞叶损伤患者组包括单侧腹侧和背侧 PFC 损伤的个体。颞叶损伤患者组包括杏仁核及其周围结构损伤的个体。结果表明，当左侧杏仁核受损时，情绪促进干扰解决的作用消失（情绪和中性干扰水平相等），而当右侧眶额皮质（OFC）受损时，情绪干扰解决受损（情绪干扰水平高于中性水平）。基于这些独特的模式，我们提出了这些区域在 WM 中情绪促进干扰解决方面的具体作用。
