Amygdala damage impairs emotional memory for gist but not details of complex stimuli
Abstract
Neurobiological studies demonstrate the amygdala's role in emotional memory, and psychological studies suggest a particular pattern: enhanced memory for the gist but not the details of complex stimuli. We hypothesized that these two findings are related. Whereas normal (n = 52) and brain-damaged (n = 22) controls showed the expected enhancement of gist memory when the encoding context was emotional, persons with unilateral damage to the medial temporal lobe including the amygdala (n = 16) did not show this pattern. Furthermore, amygdala volume showed a significant positive correlation with gist memory but not with overall memory. A further study in four subjects with selective medial temporal damage sparing the amygdala, and one with selective damage confined to the amygdala, confirmed the specificity of this effect to the amygdala. The data support a model whereby the amygdala focuses processing resources on gist, possibly accounting for features of traumatic memories and eyewitness testimony in real life.
Additional Information
© 2005 Nature Publishing Group. Received 29 October 2004; accepted 25 January 2005. We thank J. Nath, S. Lemker and M. Karafin for assistance in testing subjects, and D. Krutzfeldt and R. Henson for help in scheduling their visits. This study was supported by grant R01 MH67681 from the National Institute of Mental Health and by grant P01 19632 from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.Attached Files
Supplemental Material - nn1413-S1.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 55928
- DOI
- 10.1038/nn1413
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20150319-101547811
- NIH
- R01 MH67681
- NIH
- P01 19632
- National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)
- National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
- Created
-
2015-03-19Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2021-11-10Created from EPrint's last_modified field