Beta-adrenergic modulation of emotional memory-evoked human amygdala and hippocampal responses

Human emotional experience is typically associated with enhanced episodic memory. We have used functional magnetic resonance imaging to demonstrate that successful encoding of emotional, compared to neutral, verbal stimuli evokes increased human amygdala responses. Items that evoke amygdala activation at encoding evoke greater hippocampal responses at retrieval compared to neutral items. Administration of the beta-adrenergic antagonist propranolol at encoding abolishes the enhanced amygdala encoding and hippocampal retrieval effects, despite propranolol being no longer present at retrieval. Thus, memory-related amygdala responses at encoding and hippocampal responses at recognition for emotional items depend on beta-adrenergic engagement at encoding. Our results suggest that human emotional memory is associated with a beta-adrenergic-dependent modulation of amygdala-hippocampal interactions.