Dataset Information

Action boosts episodic memory encoding in humans via engagement of a noradrenergic system.

ABSTRACT: We are constantly interacting with our environment whilst we encode memories. However, how actions influence memory formation remains poorly understood. Goal-directed movement engages the locus coeruleus (LC), the main source of noradrenaline in the brain. Noradrenaline is also known to enhance episodic encoding, suggesting that action could improve memory via LC engagement. Here we demonstrate, across seven experiments, that action (Go-response) enhances episodic encoding for stimuli unrelated to the action itself, compared to action inhibition (NoGo). Functional magnetic resonance imaging, and pupil diameter as a proxy measure for LC-noradrenaline transmission, indicate increased encoding-related LC activity during action. A final experiment, replicated in two independent samples, confirmed a novel prediction derived from these data that emotionally aversive stimuli, which recruit the noradrenergic system, modulate the mnemonic advantage conferred by Go-responses relative to neutral stimuli. We therefore provide converging evidence that action boosts episodic memory encoding via a noradrenergic mechanism.

SUBMITTER: Yebra M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6684634 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Action boosts episodic memory encoding in humans via engagement of a noradrenergic system.

Yebra Mar M Galarza-Vallejo Ana A Soto-Leon Vanesa V Gonzalez-Rosa Javier J JJ de Berker Archy O AO Bestmann Sven S Oliviero Antonio A Kroes Marijn C W MCW Strange Bryan A BA

Nature communications 20190806 1

We are constantly interacting with our environment whilst we encode memories. However, how actions influence memory formation remains poorly understood. Goal-directed movement engages the locus coeruleus (LC), the main source of noradrenaline in the brain. Noradrenaline is also known to enhance episodic encoding, suggesting that action could improve memory via LC engagement. Here we demonstrate, across seven experiments, that action (Go-response) enhances episodic encoding for stimuli unrelated ...[more]

PMID: 31388000

Similar Datasets

Project description:Arousal's selective effects on cognition go beyond the simple enhancement of emotional stimuli, sometimes enhancing and other times impairing processing of proximal neutral information. Past work shows that arousal impairs encoding of subsequent neutral stimuli regardless of their top-down priority via the engagement of β-adrenoreceptors. In contrast, retrograde amnesia induced by emotional arousal can flip to enhancement when preceding neutral items are prioritized in top-down attention. Whether β-adrenoreceptors also contribute to this retrograde memory enhancement of goal-relevant neutral stimuli is unclear. In this pharmacological study, we administered 40mg of propranolol or 40mg of placebo to healthy young adults to examine whether emotional arousal's bidirectional effects on declarative memory relies on β-adrenoreceptor activation. Following pill intake, participants completed an emotional oddball task in which they were asked to prioritize a neutral object appearing just before an emotional or neutral oddball image within a sequence of 7 neutral objects. Under placebo, emotional oddballs impaired memory for lower priority oddball+1 objects but had no effect on memory for high priority oddball-1 objects. Propranolol blocked this anterograde amnesic effect of arousal. Emotional oddballs also enhanced selective memory trade-offs significantly more in the placebo than drug condition, such that high priority oddball-1 objects were more likely to be remembered at the cost of their corresponding lower priority oddball+1 objects under arousal. Lastly, those who recalled more high priority oddball-1 objects preceding an emotional versus neutral oddball image showed greater increases in salivary alpha-amylase, a biomarker of noradrenergic system activation, across the task. Together these findings suggest that different noradrenergic mechanisms contribute to the anterograde and retrograde mnemonic effects of arousal on proximal neutral memoranda.

Dataset Information

Action boosts episodic memory encoding in humans via engagement of a noradrenergic system.

Publications

Action boosts episodic memory encoding in humans via engagement of a noradrenergic system.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets