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Sketchpad Series 

Investigating the neural signature of individual differences in emotional episodic memory

Poster Session A - Saturday, March 7, 3:00 – 5:00 pm, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballrooms

Anna Blumenthal¹, Megan McConnell, Isabella Hewardt, Alyssa Behuniak, Katey O'Brien, Justina Buccini, Sara Bunzey, Kyra Chen; ¹Marist University

Most individuals will experience at least one traumatic event in their lifetime, but only some will develop PTSD. One possibility is that individual differences in memory encoding and recall account for this. In this study, we record EEG while participants complete two experiments, a trauma analog paradigm and an autobiographical memory interview. We hypothesized that increased gamma activity will uniquely characterize negative emotional memory. We found increased gamma activity during encoding of a negative event (car accident video) relative to a neutral event (windmill video), and increased gamma activity during recall of a personal negative event, relative to a positive event. These results suggest that gamma activity is a neural signature underlying negative emotional memory. Further, individual differences in the strength of this state may predict intrusions and symptoms of PTSD following a negative experience.

Topic Area: LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic