In 2016, Kay Tye, today a professor in Salk’s Systems Neurobiology Laboratory and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, discovered that a group of neurons in the brain’s basolateral amygdala (BLA) helps assign valence when mice are learning. One set of BLA neurons was activated with positive valence, as the animals learned to associate a tone with a sweet taste. A separate set of BLA neurons was activated with negative valence, as the animals learned to associate a different tone with a bitter taste.
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Researchers discovered a specific neurotransmitter that helps assign either positive or negative emotions to memories. Their discovery paves the way for a better understanding of why some people are more likely to retain negative emotions than positive ones—as can occur with anxiety, depression or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
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