episodic memory

Introduction

Memory of events, often with emotions attached to them. Recall is not necessarily accurate & confidence can increase although accuracy may decrease.

Examples of episodic memory are:

• remembering what you ate for breakfast
• remembering the last time you went to the movies
• remembering last night's baseball game
• remembering events with emotional context
  • highly aversive experiences
  • highly pleasurable experiences

Genetics

• a region on chromosome 6q24 is linked to exceptional episodic memory in the elderly
  • MOXD1 is a candidate gene

Physiology

• long-term potentiation in the hippocampus is essential for episodic memory
• boundary-induced neural state changes during encoding of episode predicts subsequent recognition accuracy of events but impairs memory of event order
• emotional information is better remembered than neutral information
• the amygdala & its interactions with other cerebral regions play a role in the memory-enhancing effect of emotions
• the cerebellum is involved in fear conditioning & emotional memory
• several cerebellar connections increase inconnection strength corresponding to enhanced emotional memory, including ocerbellar connections to the amygdala & hippocampus, & bidirectional connections the anterior cingulate cortex

More general terms

• declarative (explicit) memory

More specific terms

• SuperAger (exceptional cognition in the elderly)