Institute of Psychology, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Psychopharmacology (Berl). 2010 Feb;208(2):257-63. doi: 10.1007/s00213-009-1725-y. Epub 2009 Dec 2.
The glucocorticoid (GC) hormone cortisol is the end product of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA axis). Acute psychological stress increases HPA activity and GC release. In humans, chronic disturbances in HPA activity have been observed in affective disorders and in addictive behaviour. Recent research indicates that acute effects of GCs may be anxiolytic and increase reward sensitivity. Furthermore, cortisol acutely influences early cognitive processing of emotional stimuli.
In order to extend such findings to more complex emotional-cognitive behaviour, the present study tested acute effects of 40 mg cortisol on motivated decision making in 30 healthy young men.
Results showed that cortisol indeed increased risky decision making, as predicted. This effect occurred for decisions where making a risky choice could potentially yield a big reward. These results are discussed with respect to currently proposed mechanisms for cortisol's potential anxiolytic effect and GCs' involvement in reward systems.
糖皮质激素（GC）皮质醇是下丘脑-垂体-肾上腺轴（HPA 轴）的终产物。急性心理应激会增加 HPA 活动和 GC 释放。在人类中，情感障碍和成瘾行为中观察到 HPA 活动的慢性紊乱。最近的研究表明，GC 的急性效应可能具有抗焦虑作用，并增加奖赏敏感性。此外，皮质醇会急性影响情绪刺激的早期认知加工。
为了将这些发现扩展到更复杂的情绪认知行为，本研究测试了 40 毫克皮质醇对 30 名健康年轻男性的动机决策的急性影响。
结果表明，皮质醇确实如预测的那样增加了冒险决策。这种效应发生在做出冒险选择可能产生大奖励的情况下。这些结果与目前提出的皮质醇潜在抗焦虑作用的机制以及 GC 参与奖励系统的机制进行了讨论。
