Brain Imaging Investigation of the Neural Correlates of Emotional Autobiographical Recollection
Summary
We present a protocol that allows investigation of the neural correlates of recollecting emotional autobiographical memories, using functional magnetic resonance imaging. This protocol can be used with both healthy and clinical participants.
Abstract
Recollection of emotional autobiographical memories (AMs) is important to healthy cognitive and affective functioning 1 – remembering positive AMs is associated with increased personal well-being and self-esteem 2, whereas remembering and ruminating on negative AMs may lead to affective disorders 3. Although significant progress has been made in understanding the brain mechanisms underlying AM retrieval in general (reviewed in 4, 5), less is known about the effect of emotion on the subjective re-experience of AMs and the associated neural correlates. This is in part due to the fact that, unlike the investigations of the emotion effect on memory for laboratory-based microevents (reviewed in 6, 7-9), often times AM studies do not have a clear focus on the emotional aspects of remembering personal events (but see 10). Here, we present a protocol that allows investigation of the neural correlates of recollecting emotional AMs using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Cues for these memories are collected prior to scanning by means of an autobiographical memory questionnaire (AMQ), therefore allowing for proper selection of emotional AMs based on their phenomenological properties (i.e., intensity, vividness, personal significance). This protocol can be used in healthy and clinical populations alike.
Protocol
Discussion
The experimental design introduced here allows investigation of the neural correlates of remembering emotional autobiographical memories. This design has the potential to advance our knowledge of how the brain generates affective biases (positive or negative) in remembering personal memories, and how those biases may be modulated by the retrieval focus (on emotional or non-emotional aspects). This protocol has additional benefits in that it can also be used with clinical populations (e.g., in patients with depression and…
Disclosures
The authors have nothing to disclose.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by a Young Investigator Award from the US National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression and a CPRF Award from the Canadian Psychiatric Research Foundation (to FD). ED was supported by a Wyeth-CIHR Post-Doctoral Fellowship. The authors wish to thank Peter Seres for assistance with fMRI data collection and Kristina Suen for assistance with data analysis.
References
- Markowitsch, H. J. Autobiographical memory: a biocultural relais between subject and environment. Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci. 258, 98-103 (2008).
- D’Argembeau, A., Van der Linden, M. Remembering pride and shame: self-enhancement and the phenomenology of autobiographical memory. Memory. 16, 538-547 (2008).
- Rubin, D. C., Berntsen, D., Bohni, M. K. A memory-based model of posttraumatic stress disorder: evaluating basic assumptions underlying the PTSD diagnosis. Psychol Rev. 115, 985-1011 (2008).
- Jacques, P. Functional neuroimaging of autobiographical memory. Trends Cogn Sci. 11, 219-227 (2007).
- Moscovitch, M. Functional neuroanatomy of remote episodic, semantic and spatial memory: a unified account based on multiple trace theory. J Anat. 207, 35-66 (2005).
- Dolcos, F., LaBar, K. S., Cabeza, R., Uttl, B., Ohta, N., Siegenthaler, A. L. . Memory and emotion: Interdisciplinary perspectives. , 107-134 (2006).
- Dolcos, F., Denkova, E. Neural Correlates of Encoding Emotional Memories: A Review of Functional Neuroimaging Evidence. Cell Science Reviews. 5, 78-122 (2008).
- Dolcos, F. . The Impact of Emotion on Memory: Evidence from Brain Imaging Studies. , (2010).
- Dolcos, F., Iordan, A. D., Dolcos, S. Neural Correlates of Emotion-Cognition Interactions: A Review of Evidence from Brain Imaging Investigations. Journal of Cognitive Psychology. , (2011).
- Markowitsch, H. J., Vandekerckhove, M. M., Lanfermann, H., Russ, M. O. Engagement of lateral and medial prefrontal areas in the ecphory of sad and happy autobiographical memories. Cortex. 39, 643-665 (2003).
- Denkova, E., Botzung, A., Manning, L. Neural correlates of remembering/knowing famous people: an event-related fMRI study. Neuropsychologia. 44, 2783-2791 (2006).
- Botzung, A., Denkova, E., Ciuciu, P., Scheiber, C., Manning, L. The neural bases of the constructive nature of autobiographical memories studied with a self-paced fMRI design. Memory. 16, 351-363 (2008).
- Crovitz, H. F. . Galton’s walk: Methods for the analysis of thinking, intelligence, and creativity. , (1970).
- Crovitz, H. F., Schiffman, H. Frequency of episodic memories as a function of their age. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society. 4, 517-518 (1974).
- Galton, F. Psychometric experiments. Brain. 2, 149-162 (1879).
- Cabeza, R. Brain activity during episodic retrieval of autobiographical and laboratory events: an fMRI study using a novel photo paradigm. J Cogn Neurosci. 16, 1583-1594 (2004).
- Gilboa, A., Winocur, G., Grady, C. L., Hevenor, S. J., Moscovitch, M. Remembering our past: functional neuroanatomy of recollection of recent and very remote personal events. Cereb Cortex. 14, 1214-1225 (2004).
- Levine, B., Svoboda, E., Hay, J. F., Winocur, G., Moscovitch, M. Aging and autobiographical memory: dissociating episodic from semantic retrieval. Psychol Aging. 17, 677-689 (2002).
- Sharot, T., Riccardi, A. M., Raio, C. M., Phelps, E. A. Neural mechanisms mediating optimism bias. Nature. 450, 102-105 (2007).
- Addis, D. R., Moscovitch, M., Crawley, A. P., McAndrews, M. P. Recollective qualities modulate hippocampal activation during autobiographical memory retrieval. Hippocampus. 14, 752-762 (2004).
- Rubin, D. C., Schrauf, R. W., Greenberg, D. L. Belief and recollection of autobiographical memories. Mem Cognit. 31, 887-901 (2003).
- Greenberg, D. L. Co-activation of the amygdala, hippocampus and inferior frontal gyrus during autobiographical memory retrieval. Neuropsychologia. 43, 659-674 (2005).
- Watson, D., Clark, L. A., Tellegen, A. Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: the PANAS scales. J Pers Soc Psychol. 54, 1063-1070 (1988).
- Denkova, E., Dolcos, S., Dolcos, F. Reliving Emotional Personal Memories: Affective Biases Linked to Personality and Sex-Related Differences. , (2011).
- Svoboda, E., McKinnon, M. C., Levine, B. The functional neuroanatomy of autobiographical memory: a meta-analysis. Neuropsychologia. 44, 2189-2208 (2006).
- Lieberman, M. D., Cunningham, W. A. Type I and Type II error concerns in fMRI research: re-balancing the scale. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 4, 423-428 (2009).
