Distinct amygdalar pathways to frontopolar cortex and medial temporal lobe support temporal memory for emotional events
Output Details
Description
Emotions can powerfully modulate behavior, as observed in paradoxical kinesia — a term describing Parkinson's patients' sudden ability to move fluidly under surprising or emotionally arousing circumstances. This phenomenon suggests a potentially moderating role of amygdala-originated signals on distributed neural systems supporting behavior, yet how these signals shape other cognitive functions performed alongside movement — such as memory for the emotional context itself — remains unclear. In our experiment, participants encoded trial-unique negative and positive images while performing a motor task, then completed a surprise test of their memory for when each image had occurred. We found that amygdala responses to negative images predicted better temporal memory, an effect that may arise from distinct amygdala-related pathways: amygdala-hippocampus coupling, which blurred temporal precision; amygdala-frontopolar cortex coupling, which sharpened it; and amygdala-perirhinal coupling, which boosted item memory and biased time estimates toward recency. This paper extends our understanding of amygdala-originated modulation of behavior in emotional contexts beyond motor control, revealing that the circuits underlying emotion-motor facilitation may also shape cognitive function, helping to explain the memory and cognitive decline seen in Parkinson's patients who develop dementia.
Identifier (DOI)
10.64898/2026.02.19.706842
