BHS 499-07 Memory and Amnesia

1. BHS 499-07Memory and Amnesia Emotion and Memory

2. Complexities • Emotion is both an experience to be remembered and a mediator of memory. • Emotion affects recall and recognition in opposite ways, and has different effects on explicit and implicit memory. • This is the same dissociation seen earlier. • Emotion itself is a complex phenomena: • Moods vs discrete emotions, what is emotion?

3. Classical Conditioning • Classical conditioning involves a form of memory because associations are formed and used in the future. • Conditioning is strengthened by strong emotion. • LeDoux decorticated rats and showed that learning persisted but could not be unlearned, so amygdala is essential.

5. LeDoux’s Two Roads • High road goes from a stimulus to the sensory thalamus to the sensory cortex and then back to the amygdala. • The cortex processes sensory information first • Low road goes from the emotional stimulus to the sensory thalamus and then directly to the amygdala. • No cortical involvement

6. Implications of Two Roads • Subsequent learning can permit the cortex access via the high road to overrule the activation of the amygdala: • Interpretation • Unlearning • When fast response is essential to survival, the low road is very fast and motivates an automatic response.

7. Amygdala as the Hub Rhinal Cortex (transition) Memories Memories & Context Sensory Cortex Hippocampus Amygdala Sensory Thalamus Medial Prefrontal Extinction

9. The Cortex Works Through the Hippocampus Visual Cortex Auditory Cortex Somatic Cortex Transition Cortex (perirhinal, parahippocampal, entorhinal) Hippocampus

10. Two Systems Emotional Situation Amygdala System Hippocampal System Explicit Memory About Emotional Situation Implicit Emotional Memory

11. Intersection of Two Systems Immediate Conscious Experience (working memory) Amygdala-dependent emotional arousal (current) Hippocampal-dependent explicit memory (past emotions)

12. Role of Adrenaline • Adrenaline is produced by stimulation of the hypothalamus by the amydala. • Adrenaline forms stronger memories by stimulating the hippocampus and amygdala (as well as many other areas). • LTP is enhanced.

13. Mood-Dependent Memory • Mood affect encoding (as described earlier). • Later, mood affects recall as a state-dependent or context effect. • Mood-dependent recall requires strong emotion and is most obvious in autobiographical memory. • Other memory phenomena contribute (e.g., causal belonging & associations).

14. Memory About Emotion • Includes the same semantic organizational structures as other categories. • Basic, subordinate and superordinate levels. • Fuzzy boundaries, prototypes. • Schemas and scripts for the evoking and expression of emotion (cultural).

15. Body Memory • Body and other sense memory is an example of classical conditioning. • The response is in the brain, not the body, but evoked via sensory stimulation. • Senses can evoke powerful “memories” of past experiences through such associations.

16. PTSD • Includes repetition compulsion and occurs as a dysfunctional response to perceived threat. • Intrusive memories may be distortions affected by an internal conflict or concern. • “Triggering” is classical conditioning.