Study: MRI shows link between emotional memory, brain activity

Using sports film and examining the brain as it handles powerful, rapid-fire positive and negative emotions, researchers at Duke University in Durham, N.C., discovered emotion-induced resonance in brain activity and showed that people remember more positive events than negative events, according to a recent study published in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Kevin LaBar, PhD, a neuroscientist at the department of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University and colleagues investigated the links between emotion and memory that may affect Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and how well people recall their personal histories.

The researchers utilized tape of an archived, overtime basketball game between Duke and the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill to introduce powerful emotions to the study participants without creating ethical concerns.

The study participants were approximately 24 college-age men from Duke and UNC, whom the authors identified as fans with a high personal investment in either team. The men were shown an edited tape of the Feb. 3, 2000 game at UNC's Dean Smith Center, which Duke won 90-86 in overtime. After viewing the full game three times in a social setting, each participant underwent a MRI scan.

During the MRI, the participants were shown 64 taped segments of 12-second video clips of individual plays of the game, which ended with the ball being released toward the basket. The participants were then asked to recall whether or not the ball went into the basket for each play.

The authors found that positive emotion improved the participants’ memory, noting that the men had proven to more accurately remember a successful shot by their own team than either a miss by their team or a successful shot by the other team. The researchers said that this was made visible by the MRI scans, which showed the brain areas that control attention were more active for plays that benefitted the fan's team, according to the participants’ perspectives.

Moreover, the MRI scans revealed the multiple areas of the brain that were utilized in creating memories of the game. Intensity-modulated retrieval activity was noted in midline cortical structures, sensorimotor cortex, the striatum and the medial temporal lobe, including the amygdala, wrote the authors.

“These brain regions function together to improve memory storage, particularly for emotionally intense plays, said the authors. “Unfortunately, traumatic events can be stored in memory the same way, making them persistent and difficult to handle.”

A similar study that included women participants did not find the same results: Researchers noted that the participants’ recall of the shots was too low. Further studies should be conducted to see if using another taped event would yield different results, they wrote.

Duke researchers are conducting studies which will monitor fans in real time as they watch a game, in order to determine what brain areas are initially involved in forming positive and negative memories, and how the brains of emotionally impaired and depressed people might respond differently, said study co-author David Rubin, PhD, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke.

“This study offers an innovative direction for integrating controlled, realistic, and complex social experiences into the neuroimaging field, and constitutes a bridge between laboratory-based and autobiographical studies of emotional remembering,” LaBar and colleagues concluded.

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