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Why do we remember emotional events better?

New York, NY—January 18, 2023—Most people remember emotional events, like their wedding day, very clearly, but researchers are not sure how the human…

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New York, NY—January 18, 2023—Most people remember emotional events, like their wedding day, very clearly, but researchers are not sure how the human brain prioritizes emotional events in memory. In a study published January 16, 2023, by Nature Human Behaviour, Joshua Jacobs, associate professor of biomedical engineering at Columbia Engineering, and his team identified a specific neural mechanism in the human brain that tags information with emotional associations for enhanced memory. The team demonstrated that high-frequency brain waves in the amygdala, a hub for emotional processes, and the hippocampus, a hub for memory processes, are critical to enhancing memory for emotional stimuli. Disruptions to this neural mechanism, brought on either by electrical brain stimulation or depression, impair memory specifically for emotional stimuli.

Credit: Salman Qasim/Columbia Engineering, created using Biorender.com

New York, NY—January 18, 2023—Most people remember emotional events, like their wedding day, very clearly, but researchers are not sure how the human brain prioritizes emotional events in memory. In a study published January 16, 2023, by Nature Human Behaviour, Joshua Jacobs, associate professor of biomedical engineering at Columbia Engineering, and his team identified a specific neural mechanism in the human brain that tags information with emotional associations for enhanced memory. The team demonstrated that high-frequency brain waves in the amygdala, a hub for emotional processes, and the hippocampus, a hub for memory processes, are critical to enhancing memory for emotional stimuli. Disruptions to this neural mechanism, brought on either by electrical brain stimulation or depression, impair memory specifically for emotional stimuli.

Rising prevalence of memory disorders

The rising prevalence of memory disorders such as dementia has highlighted the damaging effects that memory loss has on individuals and society. Disorders such as depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can also feature imbalanced memory processes, and have become increasingly prevalent during the COVID-19 pandemic. Understanding how the brain naturally regulates what information gets prioritized for storage and what fades away could provide critical insight for developing new therapeutic approaches to strengthening memory for those at risk of memory loss, or for normalizing memory processes in those at risk of dysregulation. 

“It’s easier to remember emotional events, like the birth of your child, than other events from around the same time,” says Salman E. Qasim, lead author of the study, who started this project during his PhD in Jacobs’ lab at Columbia Engineering. “The brain clearly has a natural mechanism for strengthening certain memories, and we wanted to identify it.”

The difficulty of studying neural mechanisms in humans

Most investigations into neural mechanisms take place in animals such as rats, because such studies require http://jacobslab.org/direct access to the brain to record brain activity and perform experiments that demonstrate causality, such as careful disruption of neural circuits. But it is difficult to observe or characterize a complex cognitive phenomenon like emotional memory enhancement in animal studies. 

To study this process directly in humans. Qasim and Jacobs analyzed data from memory experiments conducted with epilepsy patients undergoing direct, intracranial brain recording for seizure localization and treatment. During thse recordings, epilepsy patients memorized lists of words while the electrodes placed in their hippocampus and amygdala recorded the brain’s electrical activity.

Studying brain-wave patterns of emotional words

By systematically characterizing the emotional associations of each word using crowd-sourced emotion ratings, Qasim found that participants remembered more emotional words, such as “dog” or “knife,” better than more neutral words, such as “chair.” When looking at the associated brain activity, the researchers noted that whenever participants successfully remembered emotional words, high-frequency neural activity (30-128 Hz) would become more prevalent in the amygdala-hippocampal circuit. When participants remembered more neutral words, or failed to remember a word altogether, this pattern was absent. The researchers analyzed this pattern across a large data set of 147 patients and found a clear link between participants’ enhanced memory for emotional words and the prevalence in their brains of high-frequency brain waves across the amygdala-hippocampal circuit.

“Finding this pattern of brain activity linking emotions and memory was very exciting to us, because prior research has shown how important high-frequency activity in the hippocampus is to non-emotional memory,” said Jacobs. “It immediately cued us to think about the more general, causal implications—if we elicit high-frequency activity in this circuit, using therapeutic interventions, will we be able to strengthen memories at will?”

Electrical stimulation disrupts memory for emotional words

In order to establish whether this high-frequency activity actually reflected a causal mechanism, Jacobs and his team formulated a unique approach to replicate the kind of experimental disruptions typically reserved for animal research. First, they analyzed a subset of these patients who had performed the memory task while direct electrical stimulation was applied to the hippocampus for half of the words that participants had to memorize. They found that electrical stimulation, which has a mixed history of either benefiting or diminishing memory depending on its usage, clearly and consistently impaired memory specifically for emotional words. 

Uma Mohan, another PhD student in Jacobs’ lab at the time and co-author on the paper, noted that this stimulation also diminished high-frequency activity in the hippocampus. This provided causal evidence that–by knocking out the pattern of brain activity that correlated with emotional memory–stimulation was also selectively diminishing emotional memory. 

Depression acts similarly to brain stimulation

Qasim further hypothesized that depression, which can involve dysregulated emotional memory, might act similarly to brain stimulation. He analyzed patients’ emotional memory in parallel with mood assessments the patients took to characterize their psychiatric state. And, in fact, in the subset of patients with depression, the team observed a concurrent decrease in emotion-mediated memory and high-frequency activity in the hippocampus and amygdala.

“By combining stimulation, recording, and psychometric assessment, they were able to demonstrate causality to a degree that you don’t always see in studies with human brain recordings,” said Bradley Lega, a neurosurgeon and scientist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and not an author on the paper. “We know high-frequency activity is associated with neuronal firing, so these findings open new avenues of research in humans and animals about how certain stimuli engage neurons in memory circuits.”

Next steps

Qasim, who is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai, is now pursuing this avenue of research by investigating how individual neurons in the human brain fire during emotional memory processes. Qasim and Jacobs hope that their work might also inspire animal research exploring how this high-frequency activity is linked to norepinephrine, a neurotransmitter linked to attentional processes that they theorize might be behind the enhanced memory for emotional stimuli. Finally, they hope that future research will target high-frequency activity in the amygdala-hippocampal circuit to strengthen and protect memory particularly emotional memory.

“Our emotional memories are one of the most critical aspects of the human experience, informing everything from our decisions to our entire personality,” Qasim added. “Any steps we can take to mitigate their loss in memory disorders or prevent their hijacking in psychiatric disorders is hugely exciting.”

###

About the Study

Journal:  Nature Human Behaviour

The study is titled “Neuronal activity in the human amygdala and hippocampus enhances emotional memory encoding.” 

Authors are: Salman Ehtesham Qasim (Department of Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai), Uma Rani Mohan (Surgical Neurology Branch, NINDS, National Institutes of Neurological Disorders and Stroke), Joel Stein (Department of Radiology, University of Pennsylvania), and Joshua Jacobs (Departments of Biomedical Engineering, Neurological Surgery, Columbia University). Both Qasim and Mohan were graduate students in Joshua Jacobs’ lab at Columbia Engineering when beginning this project.

This work was supported by NIH grants U01-NS113198 and R01-MH104606.

The authors declare no financial or other conflicts of interest.

###

LINKS:
Paper:  https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-022-01502-8 
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-022-01502-8

###

 


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Key Market Relationships for the Next Big Move

First off, we are heading out of town to New York where I will be visiting in studio several media channels and hosts.Then, we are off to Orlando for the…

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First off, we are heading out of town to New York where I will be visiting in studio several media channels and hosts.

Then, we are off to Orlando for the MoneyShow.

On November 1st, Keith and I go on vacation until the middle of the month.

This is the last Daily I will be writing for a while.

However, I will have several clips in the next few days to share, and Geoff Bysshe will occasionally write the Daily in my absence.

That said, today, I began the day with the Benzinga Market Prep Show.

I am featuring this today as content because I hope it helps you look at the market objectively.

We did not discuss inflation, which, as you are aware, I believe can go hyper as geopolitical stress, social unrest, strikes for higher wages, and mother nature could each, or worse, all, kick into gear.

We discussed bonds, small caps, commercial real estate, retail, and a couple of stocks.

In that discussion, and on the heels of Bill Ackman's statements along with our technical indicators, we spell out the exact relationships to watch.

Monday's Daily explained how much long bonds factor into the equity (and commodity) equation.

We also cover small caps and the monthly charts, along with SPY, QQQ, Transports (IYT), and Retail (XRT).

If the decades have taught me anything, it's that the simpler you can make the definitions, the better the comprehension.

It is with that in mind that we show you how easy it will be in just a short time to see where this market heads next.

Benzina Pre-Market Prep

In addition to the analysis, Joel and I talk about the floor days and how we figured out momentum with our senses!

Plus, we go over a couple of picks.

Thank you all for your continued readership and support.

I hope you have many profitable weeks.

Happy Trading.


This is for educational purposes only. Trading comes with risk.

If you find it difficult to execute the MarketGauge strategies or would like to explore how we can do it for you, please email Ben Scheibe at Benny@MGAMLLC.com, our Head of Institutional Sales. Cell: 612-518-2482.

For more detailed trading information about our blended models, tools and trader education courses, contact Rob Quinn, our Chief Strategy Consultant, to learn more.

Traders World Fintech Awards

Get your copy of Plant Your Money Tree: A Guide to Growing Your Wealth.

Grow your wealth today and plant your money tree!

"I grew my money tree and so can you!" - Mish Schneider

Follow Mish on Twitter @marketminute for stock picks and more. Follow Mish on Instagram (mishschneider) for daily morning videos. To see updated media clips, click here.


Mish in the Media

Mish covers the bond rally and how the consumer could save the day in this video.


Hear Mish's thoughts on earnings, the macro environment, and her three stock picks on Bloomberg BNN.

Ever thought of owning commodities? Hear what Mish says about the key commodities you should consider in this video.


Mish participates in Crypto Town Hall X Space. You can sign in to your X account and watch it here.

In this video, Mish talks about trading Garmin Ltd. (GRMN) on Business First AM.


Mish and Dale Pinkert discuss the disconnect between news and markets-and how to best invest right now in this video from ForexAnalytix's pre-market show.


In this video from CMC Markets, Mish shares her short-term forecast for USD/JPY and popular commodity instruments ahead of the US PPI announcement and September's Fed meeting minutes, with recent dovish comments from Fed officials suggesting a potential shift in the committee's policies.


Mish joins Business First AM to discuss the market reaction to the war in Gaza in this video.


Mish covers bonds, small caps, transports and commodities-dues for the next moves in this video from Yahoo! Finance.


In this video from Real Vision, Mish joins Maggie Lake to share what her framework suggests about junk bonds and investment-grade bonds, what she's watching in commodity markets, and how to structure a portfolio to navigate both bull and bear markets.



Coming Up:

October 26: Cheddar TV on the NYSE

October 27: Live in-studio with Charles Payne, Fox Business

October 27: Live in-studio with Yahoo Finance!

October 27: Recorded in-studio with Investor's Business Daily

October 29-31: The Money Show

Weekly: Business First AM, CMC Markets

November 1–13 VACATION


ETF Summary

  • S&P 500 (SPY): 417–420 support
  • Russell 2000 (IWM): 170 now in the rearview mirror
  • Dow (DIA): 332 pivotal
  • Nasdaq (QQQ): 351 recent low and support
  • Regional Banks (KRE): 35 next support
  • Semiconductors (SMH): 140 support.
  • Transportation (IYT): 225 pivotal
  • Biotechnology (IBB): 120 pivotal
  • Retail (XRT): 57 key support still


Mish Schneider

MarketGauge.com

Director of Trading Research and Education

Read More

Continue Reading

Uncategorized

Key Market Relationships for the Next Big Move

First off, we are heading out of town to New York where I will be visiting in studio several media channels and hosts.Then, we are off to Orlando for the…

Published

on

First off, we are heading out of town to New York where I will be visiting in studio several media channels and hosts.

Then, we are off to Orlando for the MoneyShow.

On November 1st, Keith and I go on vacation until the middle of the month.

This is the last Daily I will be writing for a while.

However, I will have several clips in the next few days to share, and Geoff Bysshe will occasionally write the Daily in my absence.

That said, today, I began the day with the Benzinga Market Prep Show.

I am featuring this today as content because I hope it helps you look at the market objectively.

We did not discuss inflation, which, as you are aware, I believe can go hyper as geopolitical stress, social unrest, strikes for higher wages, and mother nature could each, or worse, all, kick into gear.

We discussed bonds, small caps, commercial real estate, retail, and a couple of stocks.

In that discussion, and on the heels of Bill Ackman's statements along with our technical indicators, we spell out the exact relationships to watch.

Monday's Daily explained how much long bonds factor into the equity (and commodity) equation.

We also cover small caps and the monthly charts, along with SPY, QQQ, Transports (IYT), and Retail (XRT).

If the decades have taught me anything, it's that the simpler you can make the definitions, the better the comprehension.

It is with that in mind that we show you how easy it will be in just a short time to see where this market heads next.

Benzina Pre-Market Prep

In addition to the analysis, Joel and I talk about the floor days and how we figured out momentum with our senses!

Plus, we go over a couple of picks.

Thank you all for your continued readership and support.

I hope you have many profitable weeks.

Happy Trading.


This is for educational purposes only. Trading comes with risk.

If you find it difficult to execute the MarketGauge strategies or would like to explore how we can do it for you, please email Ben Scheibe at Benny@MGAMLLC.com, our Head of Institutional Sales. Cell: 612-518-2482.

For more detailed trading information about our blended models, tools and trader education courses, contact Rob Quinn, our Chief Strategy Consultant, to learn more.

Traders World Fintech Awards

Get your copy of Plant Your Money Tree: A Guide to Growing Your Wealth.

Grow your wealth today and plant your money tree!

"I grew my money tree and so can you!" - Mish Schneider

Follow Mish on Twitter @marketminute for stock picks and more. Follow Mish on Instagram (mishschneider) for daily morning videos. To see updated media clips, click here.


Mish in the Media

Mish covers the bond rally and how the consumer could save the day in this video.


Hear Mish's thoughts on earnings, the macro environment, and her three stock picks on Bloomberg BNN.

Ever thought of owning commodities? Hear what Mish says about the key commodities you should consider in this video.


Mish participates in Crypto Town Hall X Space. You can sign in to your X account and watch it here.

In this video, Mish talks about trading Garmin Ltd. (GRMN) on Business First AM.


Mish and Dale Pinkert discuss the disconnect between news and markets-and how to best invest right now in this video from ForexAnalytix's pre-market show.


In this video from CMC Markets, Mish shares her short-term forecast for USD/JPY and popular commodity instruments ahead of the US PPI announcement and September's Fed meeting minutes, with recent dovish comments from Fed officials suggesting a potential shift in the committee's policies.


Mish joins Business First AM to discuss the market reaction to the war in Gaza in this video.


Mish covers bonds, small caps, transports and commodities-dues for the next moves in this video from Yahoo! Finance.


In this video from Real Vision, Mish joins Maggie Lake to share what her framework suggests about junk bonds and investment-grade bonds, what she's watching in commodity markets, and how to structure a portfolio to navigate both bull and bear markets.



Coming Up:

October 26: Cheddar TV on the NYSE

October 27: Live in-studio with Charles Payne, Fox Business

October 27: Live in-studio with Yahoo Finance!

October 27: Recorded in-studio with Investor's Business Daily

October 29-31: The Money Show

Weekly: Business First AM, CMC Markets

November 1–13 VACATION


ETF Summary

  • S&P 500 (SPY): 417–420 support
  • Russell 2000 (IWM): 170 now in the rearview mirror
  • Dow (DIA): 332 pivotal
  • Nasdaq (QQQ): 351 recent low and support
  • Regional Banks (KRE): 35 next support
  • Semiconductors (SMH): 140 support.
  • Transportation (IYT): 225 pivotal
  • Biotechnology (IBB): 120 pivotal
  • Retail (XRT): 57 key support still


Mish Schneider

MarketGauge.com

Director of Trading Research and Education

Read More

Continue Reading

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Elizabeth Warren uses Hamas as her newest scapegoat in war on crypto

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren is taking advantage sensationalist claims related to Hamas’ use of crypto. Unfortunately, those claims are largely…

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Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren is taking advantage sensationalist claims related to Hamas' use of crypto. Unfortunately, those claims are largely false.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren is at it again. With mainstream press outlets including Germany’s Deutsche Welle running sensationalist headlines — “How cryptocurrency fueled Hamas’ terrorist attack” — Warren is using Hamas’ attack on Israel to fuel her own war on cryptocurrency.

Crypto’s role in the conflict came into focus on Oct. 10, when Israeli police froze crypto accounts used for donations to Hamas. It was not the first time. In 2021, Israel’s Terror Financing of Israel (NBCTF) seized crypto wallets linked to a Hamas fundraising campaign.

While Binance worked “closely with international counter-terrorism authorities" on the seizures, Warren led a group of more than 100 U.S. lawmakers in sending the Biden administration a letter letter asking it to crack down on Hamas and its affiliates’ cryptocurrency wallets — despite the organization’s relative struggle to raise crypto as part of its fundraising efforts.

“Congress and this administration must take strong action to thoroughly address crypto illicit finance risks before it can be used to finance another tragedy,” the letter said.

The lawmakers requested that the Biden administration also provide estimates on the value of crypto assets that remain in Hamas-controlled wallets, how much of Hamas’ operations are funded through crypto, and any information it has on the actors facilitating the sending of crypto to and from Hamas and other militant groups.

The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Gaza-based crypto broker “Buy Cash Money and Money Transfer Company (Buy Cash)” on Oct. 18, revealing it had been used for a whopping $2,000 Bitcoin transaction — a paltry sum compared to the hundreds of millions of dollars used to fund Hamas. One sanctioned wallet had $16 in it.

“We will continue to take all steps necessary to deny Hamas terrorists the ability to raise and use funds to carry out atrocities and terrorize the people of Israel,” said Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. “That includes by imposing sanctions and coordinating with allies and partners to track, freeze, and seize any Hamas-related assets in their jurisdictions.”

Terrorists’ use of cryptocurrency has been dramatically overstated. The dollar remains the key tool for money launderers, with crypto playing a relatively tiny role. Why would terrorists use blockchain when its transactions can be tracked? Beyond this, terrorists arguably have little need for crypto when they have the ability to siphon aid funds from the international community. The United Nations spent nearly $4.5 billion in Gaza from 2014-2020, including $600 million in 2020 alone, even as Hamas reportedly turned European Union-funded water pipelines into home-made rockets.

Elliptic.co, a blockchain-analysis provider, suggested in a report this month that Hamas did receive cryptocurrency around the time of the attack. However, Hamas has not used crypto as a primary source of funding, instead opting to use the banking system, money service businesses, as well as informal “hawala” transfers. This global financing network  launders funds from charities and friendly nations to Hamas. Hamas started publicly seeking funds in crypto in 2019 through its Telegram channel. The group now uses payment processors to create crypto addresses and hide its cryptocurrency wallets.

The bulk of anti-terrorism efforts should not focus on terrorist use of cryptocurrency, considering the diverse ways these organizations procure funds. “There’s not one financing method for Hamas or other terrorist organizations. They’re opportunistic and adaptive,” former CIA analyst Yaya Fanusie, now an adjunct senior fellow with the Center for a New American Security, said in an interview with CNN. “Efforts to stop them are a constant game of cat-and-mouse.”

Due to crypto’s transparent nature, it’s proven to be no secret when Hamas uses crypto, as made clear by the recent crypto freezing action. When it does use crypto, Hamas generally receives small-dollar donations, ultimately representing a small fragment of the organization’s considerable $300 million annual budget. It’s disingenuous to state that terrorist use of crypto is a credible threat relative to the fiat-denominated funds moving through these organizations.

Warren’s anti-crypto pet project appears to be a red herring, and ultimately distracts from more fruitful conversations about how terrorist organizations actually raise funds through the traditional financial system.

Kadan Stadelmann is a blockchain developer and the Komodo Platform’s chief technology officer. He graduated from the University of Vienna in 2011 with a degree in information technology before attending the Berlin Institute of Technology for technical informatics and scientific computing. He joined the Komodo team in 2016.

This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

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