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document
Negative emotional experiences during navigation enhance parahippocampal activity during recall of place information . It is known that the parahippocampal cortex is involved in object-place associations in spatial learning , but it remains unknown whether activity within this region is modulated by affective signals during navigation . Here we used fMRI to measure the neural consequences of emotional experiences on place memory during navigation . A day before scanning , participants undertook an active object location memory task within a virtual house in which each room was associated with a different schedule of task-irrelevant emotional events . The events varied in valence ( positive , negative , or neutral ) and in their rate of occurrence ( intermittent vs. constant ) . On a subsequent day , we measured neural activity while participants were shown static images of the previously learned virtual environment , now in the absence of any affective stimuli . Our results showed that parahippocampal activity was significantly enhanced bilaterally when participants viewed images of a room in which they had previously encountered negatively arousing events . We conclude that such automatic enhancement of place representations by aversive emotional events serves as an important adaptive mechanism for avoiding future threats .
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Intervention_Physical
fMRI
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Outcome_Other
neural consequences of emotional experiences on place memory
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Outcome_Other
neural activity
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Outcome_Other
parahippocampal activity
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Outcome_Other
automatic enhancement of place representations
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Participant_Condition
object location memory task