Sex-related hemispheric lateralization of electrical potentials evoked by arousing negative stimuli

Emotional memory and migraine: effects of amitriptyline and sex related difference

Many studies suggest that emotional arousal improves memory storage. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of emotional content on explicit memory in untreated cephalalgic patients and in migraineurs treated with the antidepressant amitriptyline. We utilized an adaptation of two versions of the same story, with different arousing properties (neutral or emotional), which have been already employed in experiments involving the enhancing effects of emotions on memory retention. Subjects of the present study were healthy subjects and cephalalgic patients, suffering from migraine headache, which included untreated migraineurs and migraineurs treated with the antidepressant amitriptyline. The findings of our experiments suggest that chronic migraine is related to memory impairment. Taking into account that migraine is associated with major depression, in the present research the effect of the antidepressant amitriptyline was also evaluated. Our results showed that amitriptyline has an impairment effect on memory. In fact, the untreated migraineurs, compared to treated, recalled the most emotional phase of the arousal story significantly better. Then, our data suggest that amitriptyline prevents the enhancing effects of emotional content on memory processes. Moreover, in agreement with our previous data, this study suggests the existence of gender differences in the processing of emotional stimuli and underscores the importance of sex on emotional memory mechanisms.

Enhanced selective memory consolidation following post-learning pleasant and aversive arousal

It is well established that emotions modulate memory, typically enhancing consolidation through post-learning arousal. However, many aspects of this phenomenon have yet to be delineated. For example, it remains unclear whether or not the type of arousal is relevant (pleasant vs. aversive), whether arousal enhances memory selectively for some stimuli but not others (emotional vs. neutral), which specific aspects of the stimulus representation (gist vs. detail) are affected, and whether these mechanisms are sexually dimorphic. In order to explore these issues, 178 undergraduate participants viewed a series of negative, positive and neutral pictures. They were then subjected to a post-learning arousal manipulation in the form of a pleasantly arousing-, aversively arousing-, or neutral video. Free recall tests one week later indicated that both pleasant and aversive post-learning arousal enhanced memory consolidation for positive and negative but not neutral stimuli, independent of the participants' sex. Further analysis for gist and detail aspects suggests that post-learning arousal enhances memory for the gist of the stimuli. The study has implications for the understanding of healthy and pathological cognitive-affective processes in humans.