Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Cognitive Psychology, Ruhr-University Bochum, Universitaetsstrasse 150, 44780 Bochum, Germany.
Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2013 Aug;38(8):1460-5. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2012.12.010. Epub 2013 Jan 11.
Stress effects on memory are well-known. Most studies, however, focused on the impact of stress on hippocampus-dependent 'declarative' memory processes. Less is known about whether stress influences also striatum-based memory processes, such as stimulus-response (S-R) memory. First evidence from rodent experiments shows that glucocorticoid stress hormones may enhance the consolidation of S-R memories. Whether stress affects also S-R memory retrieval remains largely elusive. Therefore, we tested in the present experiment in humans the effect of stress on the retrieval of S-R memories. Healthy men and women were trained to locate three objects in an S-R version of a virtual eight-arm radial maze. One week later, participants underwent a stressor or a control condition before their memory of the S-R task was tested. Our results showed that participants (n=43) who were exposed to the stressor before retention testing made significantly more errors in this test trial, suggesting that stress impaired S-R memory retrieval. Moreover, high cortisol concentrations were associated with reduced S-R memory. These findings indicate that stress may affect memory retrieval processes in humans beyond hippocampal 'declarative' memory.
压力对记忆的影响是众所周知的。然而，大多数研究都集中在压力对海马体依赖的“陈述性”记忆过程的影响上。关于压力是否也会影响基于纹状体的记忆过程，如刺激-反应（S-R）记忆，人们知之甚少。来自啮齿动物实验的初步证据表明，糖皮质激素应激激素可能增强 S-R 记忆的巩固。压力是否也会影响 S-R 记忆检索，在很大程度上仍不清楚。因此，我们在本实验中在人类中测试了压力对 S-R 记忆检索的影响。健康的男性和女性接受训练，在 S-R 版虚拟八臂放射迷宫中定位三个物体。一周后，参与者在进行 S-R 任务的记忆测试之前，接受应激源或对照条件。我们的结果表明，在保持测试前暴露于应激源的参与者（n=43）在该测试试验中犯了更多的错误，这表明压力损害了 S-R 记忆检索。此外，皮质醇浓度高与 S-R 记忆减少有关。这些发现表明，压力可能会影响人类的记忆检索过程，而不仅仅是海马体的“陈述性”记忆。
