Kark Sarah M, Kensinger Elizabeth A
Department of Psychology, Boston College, Massachusetts, USA.
Neuroreport. 2019 Aug 14;30(12):800-804. doi: 10.1097/WNR.0000000000001274.
Relative to neutral memories, negative and positive memories both exhibit an increase in memory longevity, subjective memory re-experiencing and amygdala activation. These memory enhancements are often attributed to shared influences of arousal on memory. Yet, prior work suggests the intriguing possibility that arousal affects memory networks in valence-specific ways. Psychophysics work has shown that arousal-related heart rate deceleration (HRD) responses are related to enhanced amygdala-visual functional connectivity (AVFC) and visual perception of negative stimuli. However, in the memory realm, it is not known whether the effect of AVFC influences subsequent negative memory outcomes as a function of the magnitude of physiological arousal during encoding. Using psycho-autonomic interaction analyses and trial-level measures of HRD as an objective measure of arousal during encoding of emotional stimuli, our findings suggest that the magnitude of the HRD modulates the effect of AVFC on subsequent negative memory vividness. Specifically, AVFC effects in early visual regions predicted negative memory vividness, not neutral or positive vividness, but only in the presence of heightened physiological arousal. This novel approach was grounded in a replication of prior working showing enhanced HRD effects in the insula for negative stimuli. These findings demonstrate that the effect of arousal on emotional memory networks depends on valence and provide further evidence that negative valence may enhance the incorporation of visuo-sensory regions into emotional memory networks.
与中性记忆相比，消极和积极记忆在记忆持久性、主观记忆重现以及杏仁核激活方面均表现出增强。这些记忆增强现象通常归因于唤醒对记忆的共同影响。然而，先前的研究表明，存在一种有趣的可能性，即唤醒以与效价相关的特定方式影响记忆网络。心理物理学研究表明，与唤醒相关的心率减速（HRD）反应与杏仁核 - 视觉功能连接（AVFC）增强以及对负面刺激的视觉感知有关。然而，在记忆领域，尚不清楚AVFC的影响是否会根据编码过程中生理唤醒的程度对随后的负面记忆结果产生作用。通过心理 - 自主神经交互分析以及将HRD的试验水平测量作为情感刺激编码过程中唤醒的客观指标，我们的研究结果表明，HRD的程度调节了AVFC对随后负面记忆生动性的影响。具体而言，早期视觉区域的AVFC效应预测了负面记忆的生动性，而非中性或正面记忆的生动性，但这仅在生理唤醒增强的情况下才会出现。这种新方法基于先前研究的重复，该研究表明岛叶对负面刺激的HRD效应增强。这些发现表明，唤醒对情感记忆网络的影响取决于效价，并进一步证明负性效价可能会增强视觉感觉区域融入情感记忆网络的程度。
