Abstract
Rationale: Animal and human evidence implicate the central noradrenergic system in the process of memory modulation for emotional material. Blockade of the beta-adrenergic system in humans has been shown to result in decreased recall and recognition memory performance, relative to placebo, for the emotional elements of a series of slides accompanied by a narrative. Stimulation of the noradrenergic system with yohimbine has also been shown to result in increased recall and recognition performance relative to placebo for the same stimulus materials. Objectives: The present study, tested the hypothesis that stimulating the central noradrenergic system using the new noradrenaline re-uptake inhibitor reboxetine would result in a dose-dependent enhancement of memory for emotional material in man. Methods: The central noradrenergic system was manipulated using reboxetine in a double-blind, randomised between-group, placebo-controlled design with 36 healthy adult subjects in each of three groups (placebo, 4 and 8 mg reboxetine). Free recall and recognition memory performance were assessed in a 'surprise' memory test following a 7-day interval. Results: We found no memory enhancing effect of reboxetine. In contrast we observed a dose-dependent effect on memory opposite to the predicted direction. There were no significant differences between groups in self-rated stress and arousal scores or self-rated emotional reactions to the stimuli. All groups showed the expected increased memory performance for the middle 'emotive' phase of the story Conclusion: Selective stimulation of the central nor-adrenergic system at encoding did not result in enhanced long-term memory for emotional material in man.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 311-318 |
Number of pages | 8 |
Journal | Psychopharmacology |
Volume | 159 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Jan 2002 |
Keywords
- emotion
- arousal
- episodic
- recall
- recognition
- BRAIN NOREPINEPHRINE CONCENTRATIONS
- STATE-DEPENDENT RETRIEVAL
- EPINEPHRINE MODULATION
- EMOTIONAL MATERIAL
- RETENTION
- STIMULATION
- PERFORMANCE
- REBOXETINE
- YOHIMBINE
- AMYGDALA