Sympathetic arousal increases a negative memory bias in young women with low sex hormone levels.

ABSTRACT: Emotionally arousing events are typically better attended to and remembered than neutral ones. Current theories propose that arousal-induced increases in norepinephrine during encoding bias attention and memory in favor of affectively salient stimuli. Here, we tested this hypothesis by manipulating levels of physiological arousal prior to encoding and examining how it influenced memory for emotionally salient images, particularly those that are negative rather than positive in valence. We also tested whether sex steroid hormones interact with noradrenergic activity to influence these emotional memory biases in women. Healthy naturally cycling women and women on hormonal contraception completed one of the following physiological arousal manipulations prior to viewing a series of negative, p

SUBMITTER: Nielsen SE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4637251 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature