Journal
PSYCHONEUROENDOCRINOLOGY
Volume 38, Issue 9, Pages 1565-1572Publisher
PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2013.01.001
Keywords
Cortisol; Non-genomic effects; Dose-response design; Inverted U-shape; Declarative memory retrieval; Humans
Categories
Funding
- German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft: DFG [GRK 1389/1]
- State Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany (Stiftung zur Forderung begabter Studierender und des wissenschaftlichen Nachwuchses Rheinland-Pfalz)
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Stress and cortisol are generally considered to impair declarative memory retrieval, although opposite results have also been reported. Dose-dependent effects and differences between genomic and non-genomic cortisol effects are possible reasons for these discrepancies. The aim of the current experiment was to assess the non-genomic effects of escalating doses of intravenous cortisol on cued recall of socially relevant information in humans. 40 participants (age range 20-30 years; 20 females) learned associations between male faces with a neutral facial expression and descriptions of either positive or negative social behaviors and were tested one week later in a cued recall paradigm. Escalating doses of cortisol (0, 3, 6, 12, 24 mg) were administered 8 min before testing according to a between-subjects design. An inverted U-shaped dose-response relationship between salivary cortisol levels and recall performance was observed, with moderate elevation of salivary cortisol resulting in the best recall performance. This is the first study in humans demonstrating that cortisol rapidly modulates declarative memory retrieval via a dose-dependent, non-genomic mechanism that follows an inverted U-shaped curve. Our result further emphasizes the importance of fast cortisol effects for human cognition. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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