A pilot study of voxel-based morphometry on brain structures related to emotional enhancement effect of memory / 中华行为医学与脑科学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective The brain volume and behavioral performance of emotional memory were measured by combining voxel-hased morphometry (VBM) and behavior to explore the morphological characters of brain regions related to the emotional enhancement effect of memory.Methods A total of 32 healthy young subjects participated in the study.The experimental processes included MR scan and behavioral performance of emotional memory the latter of which involved two phases-encoding and retrieval.Behavioral performance was recorded and the whole-brain 3D MRI data were acquired via 3.0T MR.3D MRI data were segmented by VBM5,and the wholebrain volumes of gray matter,white matter and CSF were produced.SPM5 and SPSS13.0 were used for statistical analysis of the 3D MRI data and behavioral data,respectively.Results Retrieval accuracy of the emotional pictures was higher than that of the neutral pictures ( t =5.08,P＜0.001 ),the emotional enhancement effect was significant ( Δ Pr =0.12 ± 0.01 ).Brain regions related to emotional enhancement effect included bilateral amygdala,dorsolateral prefrontal cortex,middle frontal gyrus,dorsomedial prefrontal cortex,fusiform gyms,right parahippocampus,left orbitofrontal cortex and middle cingulate gyms.Volume ratio of bilateral amygdala were related to emotion enhancement effect evidently (leftr=0.564,P＜0.01 ; rightr=0.541,P＜0.01 ).Conclusion This study morphologically confirms that brain regions,such as amygdale and prefrontal cortex,are critical structures for the enhancement of emotional memory,and further extends the findings of previous functional imaging studies.