The current study examined the role of the hippocampus in emotional memory encoding using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The present study examined the activation patterns of 12 healthy participants who were associated with memory for words and pictures with moderately high emotional tone. Results revealed significant activation in the temporal and frontal lobes for emotional and neutral stimuli. There was greater activation in the left hippocampus for emotional words and the

more »

... t hippocampus for emotional pictures. However, a separate analysis of gender suggested that the emotional responses of the women accounted for the activation of the hippocampus; men did not have a pattern of hippocampus activation consistent with the type of stimuli. These findings have important implications for the design of a clinical memory assessment using fMRI. 10 15 KEYWORDS: The central hypothesis of this study was that con-AQ2 AQ3 sistent activation of the hippocampus will occur when the subjects are given stimuli to remember that have significant emotional tone. Although numerous studies have demonstrated a clear role for the hippocampus in 20 memory, it is also an important part of the limbic system and has significant association with the amygdala, a structure implicated as an emotion-mediating structure in numerous studies [1, 2] . The hippocampus represents a major interface between the sensory systems 25 in the cerebral cortex and the emotion-mediating limbic system within the medial temporal lobe [3] . As a result, it may only become sufficiently active to produce reliable functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) BOLD responses when the stimuli are associated with AQ4 30 emotion and mood states. It may be the case that the hippocampal system encodes the emotional tone of sensory experiences so that they may be remembered and later recalled in an association with an emotional AQ5 valence. 35