Impairment of aversive episodic memories during covid-19 pandemic: The impact of emotional context on memory processes

"Episodic memory is the ability to recall about what, where and when the event happened. Furthermore, there is a consensus that pleasant or aversive events are better remembered than neutral events and that episodic memory processes are modulated by anxiety and depression. People's mental health has deteriorated due to the COVID-19 pandemic, showing a growth in anxiety and depressive symptoms. Here, we hypothesize that the increase in negative symptoms modifies the ability to encode and consolidate memories. To study this, we evaluated the effects of emotional context on encoding and consolidation of aversive and neutral episodic memories."