Emotional memory in normal elderly / 中华神经医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To explore the influence of emotional in memory in normally aging adults.Methods A neuropsychological battery was set to measure the education-matched 48 young, 48 middle-aged and 48 normally aging adults who were given picture tasks.Results As compared with the young adults (positive stimuli [66.77±9.59]％, neutral one [60.65±9.31]％ and negative one [74.77± 12.40]％) and middle-aged controls (positive stimuli [67.98± 10.73], neutral one [61.63 ±7.20]％ and negative one [71.81± 11.29]％), significant differences were noted in the images recognition in the elderly adults (positive stimuli [62.04±10.41]％, neutral one [49.58±8.25]％ and negative one [55.67±11.08)％, P＜0.05);the elderly adults showed significant difference in remembering positive stimuli, neutral one and negative one (P＜0.05).Reaction times in positive stimuli, neutral one and negative one in elderly adults were significantly different as compared with those in the young and middle-aged controls (P＜0.05);the elderly adults showed significant difference in reaction times of positive stimuli, neutral one and negative one (P＜0.05).However, there was no significant difference in their rating of valence of the images and arousal of the images(P＞0.05).Conclusion Age-related changes exists in emotional memory, which indicates that age-related changes in these brain systems may have different neuromechanisms.