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Updated: Jun 22, 2026

Brain Imaging Investigation of the Memory-Enhancing Effect of Emotion
Published on: May 4, 2011
Age-related differences in brain regions supporting successful encoding of emotional faces
Håkan Fischer1, Lars Nyberg, Lars Bäckman
1Aging Research Center, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden.
Abstract:
In an event-related functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) study, younger and older adults were presented with negative emotional (i.e., fearful) and neutral face pictures under incidental learning conditions. They were subsequently given a test of face recognition outside the scanner. Both age groups activated amygdala bilaterally as well as the right hippocampus during successful encoding of the fearful faces. Direct age comparisons revealed greater activation in right amygdala and bilateral hippocampus in the young, whereas older adults showed greater activation in the left insular and right prefrontal cortices. None of these brain areas was activated during successful encoding of neutral faces, suggesting specificity of these brain activation patterns. The results indicate an age-related shift in the neural underpinnings of negative emotional face processing from medial-temporal to neocortical regions.
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