Grey-matter differences related to true and false recognition of emotionally charged stimuli - a voxel based morphometry study.

摘要

The issue concerning the neuronal basis of true and false recognition is still a subject of extensive debate. In the present study voxel based morphometry (VBM) was used to examine structural brain correlates of these processes. Since several studies indicate that emotional content facilitates false recognition we decided to use emotional stimuli. Behavioral measures, i.e., true and false recognition rates were used as covariants in VBM analyses. VBM results indicated that the true recognition correlated positively with grey-matter (GM) density in bilateral amygdala, anterior cingulate and middle temporal gyrus, i.e., brain regions, involved in the memory of emotional material, as revealed by fMRI results. False recognition correlated negatively with GM density in prefrontal areas (BA47 and BA9), supporting the role of the prefrontal cortex in monitoring retrieval and limiting the probability of false recognition. Thus our VBM findings (i) point to the brain structures critical for correct and false emotional memory and (ii) disclose structural differences between the neural bases of these two types of memory.