Kreher Donna A, Powers Sally I, Granger Douglas A
Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA.
Behav Neurosci. 2012 Feb;126(1):157-66. doi: 10.1037/a0026654.
Both animal and human studies suggest that cognitive bias toward negative information, such as that observed in major depression, may arise through the interaction of cortisol (CORT) and norepinephrine (NE) within the amygdala. To date, there is no published account of the relationship between endogenous NE and CORT levels and cognitive bias. The present study examined salivary CORT and salivary alpha-amylase (sAA), an indirect measure of NE, in relation to masked affective priming of words in young female participants. Women with higher salivary CORT showed increased priming to negative word pairs only when sAA was also high; when sAA was low, no effect of CORT on priming was observed. These results are in line with previous research indicating that increased CORT is linked to enhanced processing of negative information. However, our findings extend this literature in providing evidence that CORT predicts enhanced processing of negatively valenced information only in the presence of higher sAA.
动物研究和人体研究均表明，对负面信息的认知偏差（如在重度抑郁症中观察到的那样）可能是通过杏仁核内皮质醇（CORT）和去甲肾上腺素（NE）的相互作用产生的。迄今为止，尚未有关于内源性NE和CORT水平与认知偏差之间关系的公开报道。本研究检测了年轻女性参与者唾液中的CORT和唾液α淀粉酶（sAA，NE的间接指标）与单词的隐蔽情感启动之间的关系。只有当sAA也较高时，唾液CORT水平较高的女性对负面词对的启动增强；当sAA较低时，未观察到CORT对启动的影响。这些结果与先前的研究一致，先前研究表明CORT升高与负面信息处理增强有关。然而，我们的研究结果扩展了这一文献，提供了证据表明只有在sAA较高的情况下，CORT才预示着对负性价信息的处理增强。
