| |
 |
 |
| |
By
stimulating the amygdala in rats, McGaugh has learned more
about how we can enhance memory.
|
Why
are certain events more indelibly etched into our memories than
others? Jim McGaugh, a professor of Neurobiology and Behavior at
the University of California, Irvine, explains to Alan that emotional
memories are more likely to stick than those that are mundane. During
an emotional event, the body's stress hormone response is activated.
This response appears to enhance our memory retention.
Larry
Cahill, a colleague of McGaugh's, conducts experiments in which
subjects are shown slides of varying emotional content. Immediately
after watching the slides, subjects immerse one arm in a tub of
ice water. The immersion triggers the stress hormone response, which
in turn enhances the subjects' memory of the slides. Subjects like
Malina, who endured the ice water for a full three minutes, recalled
the emotional slides more clearly than did the control subjects,
whose arms were not immersed in water.
The
amygdala, a small almond-shaped region of the brain near the hippocampus,
is responsible for this enhanced memory. Through research with rats,
McGaugh has shown that stimulating the amygdala with a drug that
emulates the effects of stress hormones helps memories become more
firmly fixed and retained. Without the amygdala, all of our memories
would be remembered equally: the loss of a loved one, what you ate
for Thanksgiving dinner, and where you parked your car.
But
even emotional memories are not remembered equally. Cahill has scanned
the brains of men and women while they watched emotionally arousing
events. The results show that in men typically only the right amygdala
is activated; in women, the left amygdala is activated. Previous
research suggests that the right brain processes the general gist
of events while the left side focuses on the details. This split
could account for discrepancies between the way men and women recall
emotional fights or events.
For
more on this topic, see the web feature:
He Said, She Said
|
|
