The Japanese journal of neuropsychology

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ArticleTitle	Emotion and Memory
Language	J
AuthorList	Hiroaki Kazui, Yosuke Suga, Kyoko Kakeda, Naoto Kamimura, Tetsuo Kashibayashi
Affiliation	Department of Neuropsychiatry, Kochi Medical School, Kochi University
Publication	Japanese Journal of Neuropsychology: 34 (4), 258-265, 2018
Received
Accepted
Abstract	Emotional memory is a special category of memory for events arousing emotions. We introduce four studies concerning to the emotional memory in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). The aim of the first study was to investigate the effects of emotional involvement on memory retention in patients with AD. In the study, peoples' memories of distressing experiences during a devastating earthquake (Kobe earthquake in 1995) were studied. The memories of the earthquake were assessed 6 and I0 weeks after the disaster in semi-structured interviews, and were compared with memories of a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) examination. Forty-four (86.3%) of the subjects remembered the earthquake and 16 (31.4%) of subjects remembered the MRI experience. The greater emotionally charged episode was better recalled than less emotionally charged episode, In the second study, the effect of emotion on episodic memory in AD patients was evaluated with the strictly controlled experimental paradigm. In the paradigm, subjects viewed 11 color photographs which were shown in sequence, accompanied by either an emotionally charged story (arousing story) and the emotionally uncharged story (neutral story). The two stories were identical except for one passage in each story. The rating of the emotional charge of the arousing story was significantly higher than that of the neutral story in both 34 AD patients and 10 normal elderly subjects. The arousing story was better recalled than the neutral story only in one passage, in which the emotional impact in the arousing story was greater than that in the neutral one in both AD and normal elderly subjects. These results of the two studies in AD patients indicate that enhancing effect of emotional arousal on episodic memory in preserved in AD patients. In the third study, the relationship between amygdalar and hippocampal volumes and impaired memory of Kobe earthquake was evaluated in 36 AD patients. Irrespective of generalized brain atrophy and cognitive impairments, emotional memory was correlated more with normalized amygdalar volume than with normalized hippocampal volume. The results indicate that impairment of emotional event memory in patients with AD is related to intensity of amygdalar damage. The last study, the relationship between enhancing effect of emotional arousal on episodic memory and visual memory was evaluated in 56 AD patients and the results indicate they were significantly associated. In addition, we discuss the symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder from the view point of the emotional memory through the literature review.
Keywords	emotional memory, Alzheimer's disease, post-traumatic stress disorder, amygdala, prefrontal cortex