Frontolimbic responses to emotional face memory: the neural correlates of first impressions.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Satterthwaite TD
PROVIDER: S-EPMC4244703 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:ObjectiveEnhanced memory for emotionally charged events helps us to remember potentially vital information. There are large interindividual differences in emotional-memory enhancement, but little is known about their neurobiological basis. Recently, a functional deletion variant of the gene that codes for the ?2b-adrenoceptor (ADRA2B) has been shown to affect memory for emotional experiences. Initial neuroimaging evidence linked this behavioral effect to increased amygdala activity, but its influence on successful memory processing remains unknown. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the effect of the common deletion in the ADRA2B gene on neural activity related to specific mnemonic processing, successful memory formation, and retrieval.MethodsTwenty-three noncarriers (10 males) and 28 deletion carriers (13 males) with a mean age of 24 years were investigated while performing an emotional-learning task with sad and happy scenes. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was acquired both during memory formation and retrieval.ResultsAlthough there were no differences in memory performance between groups, the common deletion variant of ADRA2B was related to enhanced activity in the amygdala and inferior frontal gyrus during successful emotional memory formation, but not retrieval. Deletion carriers showed a larger differential response in these brain regions between later-remembered and later-forgotten stimuli than nondeletion carriers did.ConclusionOur results demonstrate that the ADRA2B polymorphism influences emotional memory formation but not memory retrieval in the amygdala and left inferior frontal gyrus.
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Project description:BackgroundDeficits in emotional processing are conceptualized in prevailing models of anxiety to underpin key symptoms of panic disorder (PD). Neuroimaging studies show evidence of aberrant neural functioning in PD patients during emotional processing, however little is understood about how non-conscious emotional processing impacts neural processes.MethodWe examined activation and functional connectivity differences in brain regions involved in emotional processing between PD and healthy controls (HC) during subliminal and supraliminal presentations of facial emotions. Twenty-two PD and 33 HC participants were shown happy, sad, neutral, fear, anger and disgust facial expressions during functional magnetic resonance imaging using a 3T MRI scanner. We performed voxelwise ROI analyses at FWE-corrected p < 0.05 for main effects of group and group*emotion interactions.ResultsThere was less pregenual anterior cingulate cortex (pgACC) activation to subliminal presentations of happy and sad faces in PD compared to HC participants (group*emotion). In addition, PD patients had less pgACC - right amygdala connectivity than HC participants during sad and fear subliminal processing (group*emotion). PD patients also exhibited lower right cerebellum activity across all supraliminal presentations of facial expressions compared to HC.ConclusionThese findings suggest that there is aberrant neural processing in PD patients during both conscious and preconscious processing of both positive and negative stimuli, suggesting impaired recruitment of implicit regulatory networks during affective processing. It appears that PD patients may experience deficits in key regulatory connections between inhibitory and emotional neural networks at very early stages of processing of negative affective states.
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