how emotion and motivation affect human memory

David Clewett

David Clewett's cognitive neuroscience lab seeks to understand how emotional, stressful or motivating (rewarding/threatening) situations influence: (1) what we remember: the elements of experience that we selectively attend to and remember later on; (2) how we remember: the way in which memories become organized into discrete and meaningful episodes; and (3) when we remember: dynamic brain and neurochemical states, such as those characterized by fluctuations in physiological arousal and norepinephrine release, that modulate memory processes before, during or after an event. To study these topics, the Clewett lab takes a multi-modal approach that includes functional and structural neuroimaging (fMRI/MRI/DTI), neurophysiology (eye tracking and hormone assays), and behavioral methods

Recent Publications

Clewett, D., Dunsmoor, J., Bachman, S., Phelps, E., & Davachi, L. (preprint). Survival of the salient: Aversive learning rescues otherwise forgettable memories via neural reactivation and post-encoding hippocampal connectivity. Biorxiv.

Clewett, D., Gasser, C., & Davachi, L. (2020). Pupil-linked arousal signals track the temporal organization of events in memory. Nature communications, 11(1), 1-14.

Clewett, D., & Murty, V. P. (2019). Echoes of emotions past: How neuromodulators determine what we recollect. Eneuro, 6(2).

Clewett, D., Dubrow, S., & Davachi, L. (2019). Transcending time in the brain: How event memories emerge from experience. Hippocampus, 29(3),162-183.

Clewett, D., Huang, R., Velasco, R., Lee, T.H., & Mather, M. (2018). Locus coeruleus activity strengthens prioritized memories under arousal. Journal of Neuroscience, 38(6), 1558-1574.

Clewett, D., & Davachi, L. (2017). The ebb and flow of experience determines the temporal structure of memory. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 17,186-193.

Clewett, D., Sakaki, M., Huang, R., Nielsen, S., & Mather, M. (2017). Arousal amplifies biased competition between high and low priority memories more in women than in men: the role of elevated noradrenergic activity. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 80, 80-91.

Clewett, D., Sakaki, M., Nielsen, S., Petzinger, G., & Mather, M. (2017). Noradrenergic mechanisms of arousal’s bidirectional effects on episodic memory. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 137, 1-14.

Clewett, D., Lee, T.H., Greening, S., Ponzio, A., Margalit, E., & Mather, M. (2016). Neuromelanin marks the spot: Identifying a locus coeruleus biomarker of cognitive reserve in healthy aging. Neurobiology of Aging, 37, 117-126.

Mather, M., Clewett, D., Sakaki, M., & Harley, C. (2015). Norepinephrine ignites local hot spots of neuronal excitation: How arousal amplifies selectivity in perception and memory. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1-100.