While it's easy to forget what was on last Sunday night's dinner
menu, some events, like your own wedding or a close encounter
with a grizzly bear, become permanently engraved in your mind.
In the March issue of Nature Neuroscience, researchers report
how a region of the brain called the amygdala helps cement
emotionally charged events into long-term memory. The amygdala,
an almond-shaped part of the temporal lobe, has long been linked
to emotions. Numerous studies in animals have shown that the
amygdala facilitates the long-term memory of traumatic and
frightening events, and a handful of human studies have hinted
at the same. Lead author Stephan Hamann, a cognitive
neuroscientist at Emory University in Atlanta, wondered if the
amygdala was also involved in remembering happier events. To
find out, Hamann's team asked 10 male volunteers to look at a
dozen pictures. Some of these featured sexually arousing scenes
or appetizing food, meant to elicit positive emotions, while
others, such as photos of mutilated b