Kuhlmann Sabrina, Wolf Oliver T
Department of Psychology, University of Bielefeld, Postfach 100131, D- 33501 Bielefeld, Germany.
Neurosci Lett. 2006 May 22;399(3):268-72. doi: 10.1016/j.neulet.2006.02.007. Epub 2006 Feb 28.
Animal and human studies have repeatedly shown that stress hormones influence memory. Glucocorticoids (GCs) enhance memory consolidation but impair memory retrieval. Studies in rodents indicate that adrenergic activation is necessary for GC induced effects on memory. We have shown, in two previous placebo-controlled double-blind experiments, that memory retrieval is significantly impaired after oral cortisol (30 mg) treatment in healthy young women. Here, we changed the experimental setting before and during the retrieval testing, so that the participants (n=31) experienced a more relaxed test situation. The learning material, the timing and the tester used were identical to the two previous studies. In the relaxed condition no effect of cortisol on memory retrieval occurred (p=0.84). The results indicate that the experimental setting can influence the effect of cortisol on memory. Our findings suggest that glucocorticoid effects on memory retrieval require testing-associated arousal in humans.
动物和人体研究反复表明，应激激素会影响记忆。糖皮质激素（GCs）可增强记忆巩固，但会损害记忆提取。对啮齿动物的研究表明，肾上腺素能激活是GC对记忆产生影响所必需的。我们在之前的两项安慰剂对照双盲实验中发现，健康年轻女性口服皮质醇（30毫克）后，记忆提取能力显著受损。在此，我们在记忆提取测试之前和期间改变了实验环境，以使参与者（n = 31）体验到更轻松的测试情境。学习材料、时间安排和测试人员与之前的两项研究相同。在轻松的条件下，皮质醇对记忆提取没有影响（p = 0.84）。结果表明，实验环境会影响皮质醇对记忆的作用。我们的研究结果表明，糖皮质激素对记忆提取的影响在人类中需要与测试相关的唤醒。
