Objective: Working memory (WM) can be described as a memory system that temporarily maintains and manipulates different types of information during a task. The overwhelming majority of studies examining the link between emotion and working memory have focused on emotional state. Our study examines whether emotional state affects working memory processes. Of particular interest to us is which types of emotional states inşuence working memory and how.
Method: There are two components used in this project, working memory and emotion. Brain activity was measured in 16 healthy subjects by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while the subjects watched videotapes designed to elicit happy feelings, sad feelings, neutral feelings or blank (not feeling) states. Different emotional stories told by an African American or a Hispanic actress, which showed the controls screen. Each movie clips took approximately 200 second and every movie clips was started and ended by blank screen. Subject is given a five digit number sequence to learn and practice approximately 10 times before movie clips. They memorized true number sequences as `31232` and practiced. There were used eight Video Clips 6 emotion states, 2 blank runs, which is in quick-time TM format. This video clips are including 4 different emotion states (Happy, Sad, Neutral, Blank (no emotion). Yellow dot appeared randomly while watching clips. Each time a patient entered true sequence that he/she was thinking of, a dot appeared on the screen After each run the subject was asked to rate how emotional, they felt during the video on a scale from 0 to 10 and asked to answer one or two questions about the video. Brain images were acquired using a SIEMENS 3.0 T scanner at the MRI Center of Beijing Normal University. A single-shot T2*-weighted gradient-echo, echo-planar image (EPI) sequence was used for the functional imaging acquisition (TR= 1500 ms, TE= 30 ms, matrix= 64×64, slice= 25, slice thickness= 4.5 mm (no skip), şip angle= 80°). To reduce movement, two foam cushions were used to immobilize the subjects’ head. After preprocessing, data from each subject were high-pass filtered, and then GLM analysis was applied to compute an individual statistical map. A one-sample t-test was performed to obtain the group activation map. Incremental statistical analysis was performed based on the general linear model (GLM). The threshold for statistical significance was set at p<0.001, with a minimum cluster size of 10 contiguous significant voxels.
Results: After comparing all trials to each other, we found that there were differences in activation between different emotional conditions. Relative to other conditions, the happy condition showed reduced activity in the left middle temporal gyrus (BA 21), left supramarginal gyrus (BA 39), right middle temporal gyrus (BA 19), and fusiform gyrus (L). We found normal activity in the inferior frontal gyrus (BA 47) in relation to other conditions, while medial frontal area (BA 11) activity decreased in all emotional conditions, except during the happy condition. Only during the neutral condition was there increasing activation in the inferior temporal gyrus (BA20) and middle temporal gyrus (BA21).
Conclusion: The present study investigated how different emotion states modulate working memory from different pathways (3). Emotions are often conceptualized as positive and negative emotions, which often affect cognitive task states. In a comparison between the happy (positive) condition and sad (negative) condition, the difference in activation is less than when comparing happy and neutral conditions or sad and neutral conditions. These findings demonstrate an important dissociation between emotional type and working memory. Future studies will be needed to examine the effects of emotional variations on working memory states.