Medial Prefrontal Cortex is Involved in the Process of Emotional Memory

• Main Authors: Yung-Ying Mei, 梅玉瑩
• Other Authors: Soon-Eng Tan
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2004
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/23554926335593101484

碩士 === 高雄醫學大學 === 行為科學研究所碩士班 === 92 === Evidences show that medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) may be involved in modulating activities in amygdala. Further, it affects the process of forming, storing and retrieval of emotional memory. The purpose of our research is to determine the function of MPFC involved in affective learning. In experiment 1, the rats were trained to learn one trial passive avoidance task（PA task）The MPFC were electrically lesioned after 24 hours. They were tested for their affective memory after a week of recuperative period. In experiment 2, the rats were relearned and they were tested at two time points: 2hr and 24hr respectively. Our experiments showed that MPFC lesioning impaired 24 hours retention test, but not 2 hours retention test, in PA learning. The priming procedures could not improve the MPFC lesioned rats in PA task. Our experiments suggest that MPFC is not involved in the acquisition and retrieval process of emotional memory, but has an impact on the consolidation process that short-term memory converted to long-term memory for storage.