Given the complexity of the human body, it’s no surprise that we’re still making new discoveries about the different parts we’re made up of – and scientists have just made a new discovery about the cerebellumAt the back of the head.
This brain region is well-known for its ability to control our movements. Now, it appears that it also plays a crucial role in storing positive and negative emotions.
These emotional experiences are well-remembered by our brains, not least because they help us to survive.
The Amygdala HippocampusThe brain regions that are most responsible for the consolidation of these memories are not the cerebellum, but the cortex. Already linkedResearchers behind the new study sought to determine if fear conditioning played a role in emotional memory logging.
“The aim of the present study was to investigate whether the cerebellum and cerebellar–cerebral connections are involved in the phenomenon of superior episodic memory for emotionally arousing visual information,” write the researchers in their Publication of paper.
Functional brain scans were performed on 1,418 subjects. Resonance imaging (fMRI) scans as they viewed emotional – some positive, some negative – and neutral images, the team was able to establish that the cerebellum was indeed involved.
Participants in the study retained positive and negative images better than neutral images. This was due to the fact that the cerebellum was more active at times.
The researchers found that the cerebellum and brain communicated better with each other. cerebrumThe brain’s largest portion. The cerebellum was receiving information about the anterior cingulate cortexIt was a key region for perceiving, evaluating and feeling emotions.
“These results suggest that the cerebellum plays an integral role in a network that’s responsible for better emotional information storage.” says neuroscientist Dominique de QuervainThe University of Basel, Switzerland.
As with all new discoveries Information about neural circuitry inside our heads, these findings could be helpful in showing us how to repair that circuitry when something goes wrong – when memories aren’t stored correctly, or if they are perhaps imprinted all too clearly on our minds.
Mental health issues can be caused by the inability to forget painful or scary experiences. The new research may help us to understand why this happens.
“These findings increase knowledge about the role of cerebellum cognitive and emotional processes. They may be relevant to the understanding of psychiatric conditions with aberrant emotional circuitry like post-traumatic stress syndrome or. autism spectrum disorder,” Write to the researchers.
The research was published in PNAS.
