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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 12, 2026

Brain Imaging Investigation of the Impairing Effect of Emotion on Cognition

Brain Imaging Investigation of the Impairing Effect of Emotion on Cognition

Published on: February 1, 2012

Resisting emotional interference: brain regions facilitating working memory performance during negative distraction.

Alan Anticevic¹, Grega Repovs, Deanna M Barch

¹Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri 63130, USA. aanticev@artsci.wustl.edu

Cognitive, Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience

|May 26, 2010

Summary

Negative emotional distraction impairs working memory (WM) by altering brain activity. The amygdala

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Last Updated: Jun 12, 2026

Brain Imaging Investigation of the Impairing Effect of Emotion on Cognition

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Published on: February 1, 2012

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Published on: July 16, 2015

Design and Implementation of an fMRI Study Examining Thought Suppression in Young Women with, and At-risk, for Depression

Design and Implementation of an fMRI Study Examining Thought Suppression in Young Women with, and At-risk, for Depression

Published on: May 19, 2015

Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Cognitive Psychology
Emotional Processing

Background:

Survival-relevant stimuli capture attention, even during cognitive tasks.
Negative emotional distraction impacts working memory (WM) by affecting lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) and amygdala activity.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the neural mechanisms underlying the effect of negative emotional distraction on WM.
To examine how prefrontal cortex (PFC) and amygdala activity relate to WM performance during emotional distraction.

Main Methods:

Slow event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used.
Participants performed a WM task under conditions of negative and neutral distraction.
Resting-state fMRI was also employed to assess functional connectivity.

Main Results:

Prefrontal cortex (PFC) regions showed differential activation between correct and incorrect WM trials during negative distraction.
Amygdala activity predicted WM performance, with lower activity correlating with better performance.
Amygdala showed stronger negative correlations with PFC during negative distraction compared to resting state or neutral distraction.

Conclusions:

An inverse relationship exists between dorsal PFC and amygdala activity when processing aversive stimuli interferes with cognitive tasks.
The PFC plays a crucial role in mitigating emotional interference during WM.