Laboratory of Social Neuroscience, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain.
Stress. 2012 May;15(3):329-38. doi: 10.3109/10253890.2011.624224. Epub 2011 Nov 1.
Social stress affects cognitive processes in general, and memory performance in particular. However, the direction of these effects has not been clearly established, as it depends on several factors. Our aim was to determine the impact of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and sympathetic nervous system (SNS) reactivity to psychosocial stress on short-term non-declarative memory and declarative memory performance. Fifty-two young participants (18 men, 34 women) were subjected to the Trier Social Stress Task (TSST) and a control condition in a crossover design. Implicit memory was assessed by a priming test, and explicit memory was assessed by the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT). The TSST provoked greater salivary cortisol and salivary alpha-amylase (sAA) responses than the control task. Men had a higher cortisol response to stress than women, but no sex differences were found for sAA release. Stress was associated with an enhancement of priming but did not affect declarative memory. Additionally, the enhancement on the priming test was higher in those whose sAA levels increased more in response to stress (r(48) = 0.339, p = 0.018). Our results confirm an effect of acute stress on priming, and that this effect is related to SNS activity. In addition, they suggest a different relationship between stress biomarkers and the different memory systems.
社会压力会普遍影响认知过程，尤其是记忆表现。然而，这些影响的方向尚未明确，因为它取决于几个因素。我们的目的是确定下丘脑-垂体-肾上腺（HPA）轴和交感神经系统（SNS）对社会心理压力的反应对短期非陈述性记忆和陈述性记忆表现的影响。52 名年轻参与者（18 名男性，34 名女性）以交叉设计接受了特里尔社会压力测试（TSST）和对照条件。内隐记忆通过启动测试进行评估，外显记忆通过 Rey 听觉言语学习测试（RAVLT）进行评估。TSST 引起的唾液皮质醇和唾液 α-淀粉酶（sAA）反应大于对照任务。男性对压力的皮质醇反应高于女性，但 sAA 释放没有性别差异。压力与启动增强有关，但不影响陈述性记忆。此外，那些对压力反应中 sAA 水平升高更多的人在启动测试中的增强更高（r(48) = 0.339，p = 0.018）。我们的结果证实了急性压力对启动的影响，并且这种影响与 SNS 活动有关。此外，它们表明应激生物标志物与不同记忆系统之间存在不同的关系。
