Hollearn Martina K, Manns Joseph R, Blanpain Lou T, Hamann Stephan B, Bijanki Kelly, Gross Robert E, Drane Daniel L, Campbell Justin M, Wahlstrom Krista L, Light Griffin F, Tasevac Aydin, Demarest Phillip, Brunner Peter, Willie Jon T, Inman Cory S
Department of Psychology, University of Utah, 380 S 1530 E BEH S 502, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112, USA.
Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA.
Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2025 Feb;25(1):188-209. doi: 10.3758/s13415-024-01250-4. Epub 2024 Dec 19.
Amygdala activation by emotional arousal during memory formation can prioritize events for long-term memory. Building upon our prior demonstration that brief electrical stimulation to the human amygdala reliably improved long-term recognition memory for images of neutral objects without eliciting an emotional response, our study aims to explore and describe individual differences and stimulation-related factors in amygdala-mediated memory modulation. Thirty-one patients undergoing intracranial monitoring for intractable epilepsy were shown neutral object images paired with direct amygdala stimulation during encoding with recognition memory tested immediately and one day later. Adding to our prior sample, we found an overall memory enhancement effect without subjective emotional arousal at the one-day delay, but not at the immediate delay, for previously stimulated objects compared to not stimulated objects. Importantly, we observed a larger variation in performance across this larger sample than our initial sample, including some participants who showed a memory impairment for stimulated objects. Of the explored individual differences, the factor that most accounted for variability in memory modulation was each participant's pre-operative memory performance. Worse memory performance on standardized neuropsychological tests was associated with a stronger susceptibility to memory modulation in a positive or negative direction. Sex differences and the frequency of interictal epileptiform discharges (IEDs) during testing also accounted for some variance in amygdala-mediated memory modulation. Given the potential and challenges of this memory modulation approach, we discuss additional individual and stimulation factors that we hope will differentiate between memory enhancement and impairment to further optimize the potential of amygdala-mediated memory enhancement for therapeutic interventions.
在记忆形成过程中，情绪唤醒引起的杏仁核激活可使事件在长期记忆中具有优先地位。基于我们之前的研究，即对人类杏仁核进行短暂电刺激能可靠地改善对中性物体图像的长期识别记忆，且不会引发情绪反应，我们的研究旨在探索和描述杏仁核介导的记忆调节中的个体差异和与刺激相关的因素。在编码过程中，对31名因顽固性癫痫接受颅内监测的患者展示中性物体图像，并同时对杏仁核进行直接刺激，分别在刺激后立即以及一天后测试识别记忆。在我们之前的样本基础上，我们发现，与未受刺激的物体相比，对于之前受刺激的物体，在延迟一天时存在总体记忆增强效应，且无主观情绪唤醒，但在即时延迟时则没有。重要的是，我们观察到，与最初的样本相比，在这个更大的样本中表现的变异性更大，包括一些对受刺激物体表现出记忆损害的参与者。在探索的个体差异中，最能解释记忆调节变异性的因素是每个参与者术前的记忆表现。在标准化神经心理测试中记忆表现较差与在正向或负向记忆调节中更强的易感性相关。性别差异以及测试期间发作间期癫痫样放电（IEDs）的频率也在杏仁核介导的记忆调节中占了一些变异。鉴于这种记忆调节方法的潜力和挑战，我们讨论了其他个体和刺激因素，希望这些因素能区分记忆增强和损害，以进一步优化杏仁核介导的记忆增强在治疗干预中的潜力。
