Journal
NEUROBIOLOGY OF LEARNING AND MEMORY
Volume 97, Issue 4, Pages 465-469Publisher
ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1016/j.nlm.2012.03.010
Keywords
Norepinephrine; Emotion; Pattern separation; Dentate gyrus
Funding
- University of California at Irvine
- Johns Hopkins University
- National Institutes on Aging [R03 AG032015]
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Pattern separation, the process by which similar experiences can be stored as distinct memories, has been ascribed to the dentate gyrus (DG) of the hippocampus. The DG is the target of noradrenergic modulation directly and indirectly via the basolateral amygdala. We tested the hypothesis that noradrenergic activation (tested using salivary alpha-amylase) potentiates DG function, enhancing pattern separation, by showing participants fearful stimuli in a pre-training task and then testing their capacity for pattern separation in a later test. Consistent with our hypothesis, we found that increased levels of salivary alpha-amylase were positively correlated with enhanced pattern separation performance even after accounting for general enhancements in recognition. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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