Make mild moments memorable: add a little arousal.
In a recent paper Anderson and colleagues reported that emotionally arousing stimuli enhance long-term memory of immediately preceding neutral stimuli. The findings fit well with the perseveration-consolidation hypothesis and with extensive evidence from both human and animal studies indicating that arousal-induced modulation of memory is mediated by beta-noradrenergic activation of the amygdala.
McGaugh
James L
JL
Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory and Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697-3800, USA. james.mcgaugh@uci.edu
D000818:Animals; D001143:Arousal / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D004644:Emotions; D006801:Humans; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D011943:Receptors, Adrenergic, beta / Q000502:physiology; D013312:Stress, Physiological / Q000503:physiopathology
D011943:Receptors, Adrenergic, beta