It is a well known fact that events related to negative events are better remembered. This enhancement of encoding negative events into memory is supported by noradrenaline. We showed that, in older adults, the integrity of their noradrenergic brain stem nuclei can predict the extent to which they can remember scene stimuli related to negative events. Those older adults with a larger Locus Coeruleus (LC) integrity remembered scene stimuli before loss feedback, but not before gain feedback better.

This suggests that a decline in memory in ageing is in part related to a reduced noradrenergic modulation.