MODULATING AVERSIVE MEMORY FORMATION WITH NON-INVASIVE THETA-BURST TEMPORAL INTERFERENCE STIMULATION

Emotional arousal enhances memory persistence, a process supported by amygdala-driven modulation of hippocampal memory mechanisms (McGaugh et al., 2000; Costa et al., 2022,2025). Dysregulation of these processes motivates the development of non-invasive brain stimulation approaches. Temporal interference stimulation (tTIS) is a non-invasive technique that enables modulation of deep brain regions, including the hippocampus (Violante et al., 2023). Although tTIS has been shown to influence episodic memory in healthy adults, it remains unclear whether targeting amygdala–hippocampal circuits during encoding can modulate aversive memory performance (Costa et al., 2022).
We applied non-invasive theta-burst tTIS targeting the hippocampus in healthy participants during an emotional memory task. Stimulation was delivered continuously for 14 minutes during encoding phase (day 1), while participants viewed emotionally valenced images across two encoding blocks. Recognition memory was assessed 24 hours later (day 2) using an old/new recognition task. Twenty-three participants received active stimulation, and twenty-six served as controls.
Preliminary results revealed a Group × Emotion interaction suggesting reduced emotional memory performance following hippocampal stimulation. An emotional memory advantage was observed in the control group but not in the stimulation group. A trend toward a Block × Group interaction indicated that this effect was stronger during the later encoding block, after ~10 minutes of stimulation.
These findings provide evidence that non-invasive theta-burst modulation of hippocampal activity can influence emotional memory formation. The results support a role for theta-related mechanisms in aversive memory encoding and motivate future neuromodulation studies addressing emotional memory dysregulation.