The University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Australia.
J Cogn Neurosci. 2014 Jan;26(1):154-64. doi: 10.1162/jocn_a_00468. Epub 2013 Aug 28.
It is known that the parahippocampal cortex is involved in object-place associations in spatial learning, but it remains unknown whether activity within this region is modulated by affective signals during navigation. Here we used fMRI to measure the neural consequences of emotional experiences on place memory during navigation. A day before scanning, participants undertook an active object location memory task within a virtual house in which each room was associated with a different schedule of task-irrelevant emotional events. The events varied in valence (positive, negative, or neutral) and in their rate of occurrence (intermittent vs. constant). On a subsequent day, we measured neural activity while participants were shown static images of the previously learned virtual environment, now in the absence of any affective stimuli. Our results showed that parahippocampal activity was significantly enhanced bilaterally when participants viewed images of a room in which they had previously encountered negatively arousing events. We conclude that such automatic enhancement of place representations by aversive emotional events serves as an important adaptive mechanism for avoiding future threats.
已知海马旁皮质参与空间学习中的物体-位置联想，但在导航过程中该区域的活动是否受到情感信号的调节仍不清楚。在这里，我们使用 fMRI 来测量在导航过程中情绪体验对位置记忆的神经影响。在扫描前一天，参与者在一个虚拟房屋内进行了主动的物体位置记忆任务，每个房间都与不同的任务无关的情绪事件的时间表相关联。这些事件在效价（积极、消极或中性）和发生频率（间歇性与连续性）上有所不同。在接下来的一天，当参与者观看以前学习过的虚拟环境的静态图像时，我们测量了他们的神经活动，此时没有任何情感刺激。我们的研究结果表明，当参与者观看他们之前遇到过负性唤起事件的房间的图像时，双侧海马旁皮质的活动明显增强。我们的结论是，这种由厌恶情绪事件引起的对位置表示的自动增强是避免未来威胁的重要适应机制。
