Vallejo Lorena, Zapater-Fajarí Mariola, Montoliu Teresa, Puig-Perez Sara, Nacher Juan, Hidalgo Vanesa, Salvador Alicia
Laboratory of Social Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Psychobiology and University Institute for Research in Psychology of Human Resources, Organizational Development and Quality of Work Life (IDOCAL), University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain.
Department of Health Sciences, Valencian International University, Valencia, Spain.
Front Psychol. 2021 Jan 7;11:596584. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.596584. eCollection 2020.
Type 2 diabetes (T2D) has been considered a public health threat due to its growing prevalence, particularly in the older population. It is important to know the effects of psychosocial stress and its potential consequences for some basic cognitive processes that are important in daily life. Currently, there is very little information about how people with T2D face acute psychosocial stressors, and even less about how their response affects working memory (WM), which is essential for their functionality and independence. Our aim was to characterize the response to an acute laboratory psychosocial stressor and its effects on WM in older people with T2D. Fifty participants with T2D from 52 to 77 years old were randomly assigned to a stress (12 men and 12 women) or control (12 men and 14 women) condition. Mood and physiological (cortisol, C, and salivary alpha-amylase, sAA) responses to tasks were measured. In addition, participants completed a WM test before and after the stress or control task. Our results showed that the TSST elicited higher negative affect and greater C and sAA responses than the control task. No significant differences in WM were observed depending on the exposure to stress or the control task. Finally, participants who showed higher C and sAA responses to the stressor had lower WM performance. Our results indicate that medically treated older adults with T2D show clear, typical mood and physiological responses to an acute psychosocial stressor. Finally, the lack of acute psychosocial stress effects on WM suggests that it could be related to aging and not to this disease, at least when T2D is adequately treated.
2型糖尿病（T2D）因其患病率不断上升，尤其是在老年人群中，已被视为一种公共卫生威胁。了解心理社会压力的影响及其对日常生活中一些重要的基本认知过程的潜在后果非常重要。目前，关于T2D患者如何面对急性心理社会压力源的信息非常少，而关于他们的反应如何影响工作记忆（WM）的信息更少，而工作记忆对他们的功能和独立性至关重要。我们的目的是描述老年T2D患者对急性实验室心理社会压力源的反应及其对WM的影响。50名年龄在52至77岁之间的T2D患者被随机分配到压力组（12名男性和12名女性）或对照组（12名男性和14名女性）。测量了对任务的情绪和生理（皮质醇、C和唾液α淀粉酶、sAA）反应。此外，参与者在压力或对照任务前后完成了一项WM测试。我们的结果表明，与对照任务相比，TSST引发了更高的负面影响以及更大的C和sAA反应。根据是否暴露于压力或对照任务，未观察到WM有显著差异。最后，对压力源表现出更高C和sAA反应的参与者的WM表现较低。我们的结果表明，接受药物治疗的老年T2D患者对急性心理社会压力源表现出明显、典型的情绪和生理反应。最后，急性心理社会压力对WM缺乏影响表明，这可能与衰老有关，而与这种疾病无关，至少在T2D得到充分治疗时是这样。
