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Clinical Trial
. 2004 Aug 3;101(31):11454-8.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.0404282101. Epub 2004 Jul 21.

Beta-adrenergic modulation of emotional memory-evoked human amygdala and hippocampal responses

B A Strange  1 , R J Dolan
Affiliations
Clinical Trial

Beta-adrenergic modulation of emotional memory-evoked human amygdala and hippocampal responses

B A Strange et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .

Abstract

Human emotional experience is typically associated with enhanced episodic memory. We have used functional magnetic resonance imaging to demonstrate that successful encoding of emotional, compared to neutral, verbal stimuli evokes increased human amygdala responses. Items that evoke amygdala activation at encoding evoke greater hippocampal responses at retrieval compared to neutral items. Administration of the beta-adrenergic antagonist propranolol at encoding abolishes the enhanced amygdala encoding and hippocampal retrieval effects, despite propranolol being no longer present at retrieval. Thus, memory-related amygdala responses at encoding and hippocampal responses at recognition for emotional items depend on beta-adrenergic engagement at encoding. Our results suggest that human emotional memory is associated with a beta-adrenergic-dependent modulation of amygdala-hippocampal interactions.

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Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Experimental design, blood pressure data, and drug serum concentrations. (A) Experimental timeline. (B) Examples of presented nouns. (C) Systolic (sy) and diastolic (di) blood pressure (BP; mmHg, 1 mmHg = 133 Pa) for placebo and drug groups as well as drug serum concentrations (propranolol; in μg/liter). E, emotional noun; P, perceptual oddball. *, P < 0.05 on a two-tailed paired t test.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.
Recognition-related neuronal responses during successful retrieval of emotional nouns. In the placebo group, left hippocampal body (-24, -22, -18; Z = 3.68) is more active for confident emotional hits vs. correct rejections of emotional foils relative to confident control hits vs. correct neutral rejections. The activation is overlaid on coronal (y = -22) and sagittal (x = -18) sections of the T1 image (Upper) and a single-subject mean functional T2* image (Lower; color contrast inverted for illustration). Activation in this region (-26, -22, -18; Z = 2.48; P < 0.01 uncorrected) was present in the three-way interaction of (placebo vs. drug) × (correct hit vs. correct rejection) × (emotion vs. neutral). Hippocampal response estimates for these event types, as well as to confidently recognized perceptual oddballs, are plotted at right for placebo and drug groups. H, confident correct hits; CR, confident correct rejections; E, emotional noun/emotional foils; C, control noun (mean of Ce and Cp)/neutral foils; P, perceptual oddball.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Neuronal responses during successful encoding of emotional nouns. (A) Activation in left amygdala (-26, 2, -20; Z = 3.34) was greater for subsequently recognized vs. forgotten emotional nouns in the placebo group. The activation is overlaid on coronal (y = 2), sagittal (x = -26), and transverse (z = -20) sections of the MNI T1 image (SPM threshold for illustration, here and in Fig. 3, P < 0.005 uncorrected). Colored bar indicates the T statistic of the activation. (B) The same left amygdala region (-26, 2, -22; Z = 3.61) was present when successful encoding activation for emotional oddballs was compared between placebo and drug groups. The parameter estimates (arbitrary units) for these event types, as well as to remembered and forgotten control nouns and perceptual oddballs, are plotted (± SE of the mean across all subjects) for left amygdala activation (circled) for both groups below. R and F, confidently subsequently recognized and forgotten, respectively; E, emotional noun; P, perceptual oddball; C, control noun (mean of Ce and Cp). Note that RP vs. FP in the placebo group does not yield significant amygdala activation, nor does FC vs. RC. The transverse sections also demonstrate a right-lateralized activation located anterior to the amygdala in the uncus.
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