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我们每天会看到大量新画面，但只有一小部分会留在长期记忆里。这篇文章介绍一项新研究：过去，大脑深处的杏仁核主要被认为与恐惧、兴奋等强烈情绪有关，而研究人员发现，它也可能像“过滤器”一样，为普通的日常经历做标记。文章先提出问题并纠正常见看法，再说明研究如何借助已植入电极的癫痫患者记录单个脑细胞，接着解释“类别细胞”的反应强度如何预测图片能否被记住，最后交代研究的局限和可能的医学用途。阅读时可留意 suggests、seems、could 等词如何表达研究结论的确定程度，以及 for example、instead、still 等词如何组织例子与转折。

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Why do we remember where we parked the car this morning but forget most of the other cars we passed? A new study suggests that part of the answer lies in the amygdala, a small area deep inside the brain about the size of a walnut. The research, led by scientists at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, was published in the journal Nature Neuroscience on 27 October.

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为什么我们记得今天早上把车停在了哪里，却忘了路过的大多数其他车辆？一项新研究表明，部分答案在于杏仁核——大脑深处一个约核桃大小的小区域。这项研究由洛杉矶西达赛奈医疗中心的科学家主导，于 10 月 27 日发表在《自然·神经科学》期刊上。

For a long time, the amygdala has been known mainly for its role in emotion. Scientists believed that it helped us store memories of frightening or exciting events, but they did not think it mattered much for ordinary memories. The new study challenges that view and suggests that the amygdala works more like a filter for everyday experiences.

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长期以来，人们主要因杏仁核在情绪中的作用而了解它。科学家认为，它帮助我们储存关于可怕或令人兴奋之事的记忆，但并不认为它对普通记忆有多大影响。这项新研究对这一观点提出了挑战，并表明杏仁核的作用更像是日常经历的一个过滤器。

To test this, the team needed to record the activity of single brain cells, which is very hard to do in healthy people. They worked with 112 patients with epilepsy who already had thin electrodes placed in their brains so that doctors could find the source of their seizures. While doctors watched for seizures, the patients agreed to take part in memory tasks. They looked at pictures they had never seen before, such as faces, animals, food, cars and landscapes. Later, they were shown pictures again and asked which ones they remembered.

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为了验证这一点，研究团队需要记录单个脑细胞的活动，而这在健康人身上很难做到。他们与 112 名癫痫患者合作，这些患者的大脑中原本就已植入细电极，以便医生找到癫痫发作的源头。在医生监测发作的同时，患者同意参与记忆任务。他们观看了此前从未见过的图片，如人脸、动物、食物、汽车和风景。之后，研究人员再次向他们展示图片，并询问他们记得哪些。

The researchers found that some cells in the amygdala respond mainly to one type of picture. One cell might react strongly to faces, for example, while another reacts to animals. When such a cell fired more strongly as a patient first saw a picture from its favourite group, that picture was more likely to be remembered later. By looking at these signals, the team could predict which images would stay in memory and which would be forgotten.

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研究人员发现，杏仁核中的一些细胞主要对某一类图片作出反应。例如，一个细胞可能对人脸反应强烈，而另一个细胞则对动物有反应。当这样的细胞在患者第一次看到其“偏好”类别的图片时放电更强，这张图片之后就更有可能被记住。通过观察这些信号，研究团队能够预测哪些图片会留在记忆中、哪些会被遗忘。

The effect appeared earlier and was stronger in the amygdala than in the hippocampus, a brain area long seen as central to memory. It also did not depend on how pleasant or exciting a picture was. This suggests that the amygdala is not only reacting to strong feelings. Instead, it seems to mark a small number of new experiences to be kept.

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这种效应在杏仁核中出现得更早，也比在海马体中更强，而海马体长期以来被视为记忆的核心脑区。这一效应也不取决于图片有多令人愉快或兴奋。这表明杏仁核并不只是对强烈的情绪作出反应；相反，它似乎会标记少量需要保留的新经历。

The study has limits. All the patients had epilepsy, and the tasks used only pictures. Ueli Rutishauser, the study’s senior author, said future work could test whether the amygdala plays a similar role for sounds and smells. Still, the team believes the findings could one day help doctors treat memory problems linked to Alzheimer’s disease and epilepsy.

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这项研究也有局限。所有患者都患有癫痫，而且任务只使用了图片。该研究的资深作者乌利·鲁蒂斯豪泽表示，未来的研究可以检验杏仁核在声音和气味方面是否起着类似作用。尽管如此，研究团队相信，这些发现将来或许能帮助医生治疗与阿尔茨海默病和癫痫相关的记忆问题。

新闻来源

• Cedars-Sinai Newsroom · Research Reveals Small Brain Area Has a Giant Role in Memory (27 Oct 2026)
• Medical Xpress · Amygdala activity predicts which new images may become lasting memories (27 Oct 2026)
• Nature Neuroscience · Stimulus-specific recruitment of human amygdala neurons predicts episodic memory encoding success (Xiao et al., 2026)

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