Semantic structures facilitate threat memory integration throughout the medial temporal lobe and medial prefrontal cortex.

ABSTRACT: Emotional experiences can profoundly impact our conceptual model of the world, modifying how we represent and remember a host of information even indirectly associated with that experienced in the past. Yet, how a new emotional experience infiltrates and spreads across pre-existing semantic knowledge structures (e.g., categories) is unknown. We used a modified aversive sensory preconditioning paradigm in fMRI (n = 35) to investigate whether threat memories integrate with a pre-established category to alter the representation of the entire category. We observed selective but transient changes in the representation of conceptually related items in the amygdala, medial prefrontal cortex, and occipitotemporal cortex following threat conditioning to a simple cue (geometric shape) pre-associated

SUBMITTER: Cooper SE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11303100 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature