Enhanced memory for emotional material following stress-level cortisol treatment in humans

@article{Buchanan2001EnhancedMF,
  title={Enhanced memory for emotional material following stress-level cortisol treatment in humans},
  author={Tony W. Buchanan and William R. Lovallo},
  journal={Psychoneuroendocrinology},
  year={2001},
  volume={26},
  pages={307-317}
}
View on Elsevier
mindbody1.org
749 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
41
Background Citations
354
Methods Citations
21
Results Citations
47

Figures and Tables from this paper

749 Citations

Arousal and cortisol interact in modulating memory consolidation in healthy young men.
TLDR
Results support the notion that glucocorticoids specifically enhance the consolidation of emotional material and lead to an enhanced emotional memory facilitation.
Cortisol has different effects on human memory for emotional and neutral stimuli
TLDR
In all memory tests, subjects who viewed the emotional story scored better for the emotionally arousing story parts, indicating that arousal enhances memory, and confirms a non-linear interaction between cortisol and arousal on memory formation.
Cortisol variation in humans affects memory for emotionally laden and neutral information.
TLDR
The study provides evidence of beneficial effects of acute cortisol elevations on explicit memory in humans and suggests that the effects of cortisol on memory do not differ substantially for emotional and neutral information.
ACUTE STRESS ENHANCES MEMORY FOR EMOTIONAL WORDS, BUT IMPAIRS MEMORY FOR NEUTRAL WORDS
TLDR
It is concluded that it makes little sense to speculate about memory effects and elevated levels of cortisol because such effects might depend on the valence of the material that is learned.
Effects of oral cortisol treatment in healthy young women on memory retrieval of negative and neutral words
Stress administered prior to encoding impairs neutral but enhances emotional long-term episodic memories.
TLDR
It is demonstrated that stress, when administered prior to encoding, produces different patterns of long-term remembering for neutral and emotional episodes, and these differences likely emerge from differential actions of stress hormones on memory-relevant regions of the brain.
Role of the Basolateral Amygdala in Memory Consolidation
TLDR
The findings suggest further that this memory‐modulatory system may be involved in the formation of traumatic memories and posttraumatic stress disorder in human subjects.
Higher post-encoding cortisol benefits the selective consolidation of emotional aspects of memory
Endogenous cortisol elevations are related to memory facilitation only in individuals who are emotionally aroused
Enhanced human memory consolidation with post-learning stress: interaction with the degree of arousal at encoding.
TLDR
Cold pressor stress, which significantly elevated salivary cortisol levels, enhanced memory for emotionally arousing slides compared with the controls, but did not affect memory for relatively neutral slides, which further support the view that post-learning stress hormone-related activity interacts with arousal at initial encoding to modulate memory consolidation.
...
...

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 28 REFERENCES
Beta-adrenergic activation and memory for emotional events.
TLDR
It is reported here that propranolol significantly impaired memory of the emotionally arousing story but did not affect memory ofThe emotionally neutral story, which supports the hypothesis that enhanced memory associated with emotional experiences involves activation of the beta-adrenergic system.
Stress- and treatment-induced elevations of cortisol levels associated with impaired declarative memory in healthy adults.
Memory for emotional events: differential effects of centrally versus peripherally acting β-blocking agents
TLDR
The results support the view that memory of a mild emotional event involves activation of central, but not necessarily peripheral β-adrenergic receptors, while propranolol impaired memory in subjects who saw the emotional version of the slide show.
Remembering pictures: pleasure and arousal in memory.
TLDR
The results suggest that whereas both the dimensions of pleasantness and arousal are processed at initial encoding, long-term memory performance is mainly affected by arousal.
Stress and cognitive function
Stimulation of the noradrenergic system enhances and blockade reduces memory for emotional material in man.
BACKGROUND It is clearly established that emotional events tend to be remembered particularly vividly. The neurobiological substrates of this phenomenon are poorly understood. Recently, the…
Decreased memory performance in healthy humans induced by stress-level cortisol treatment.
TLDR
Several days of exposure to cortisol at doses and plasma concentrations associated with physical and psychological stress in humans can-similar to pharmacological GC treatment-reversibly decrease specific elements of memory performance in otherwise healthy individuals.
Working memory is more sensitive than declarative memory to the acute effects of corticosteroids: a dose-response study in humans.
TLDR
It is suggested that working memory is more sensitive than declarative memory to the acute elevations of corticosteroids, which could explain the detrimental effects of cortICosteroids on acquisition and consolidation of information, as reported in the literature.
Stress and cognition: are corticosteroids good or bad guys?
Glucocorticoids and the regulation of memory consolidation
...
...