Stone Caleb, Ney Luke, Felmingham Kim, Nichols David, Matthews Allison
School of Psychological Sciences, University of Tasmania, Australia.
School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne, Australia.
Physiol Behav. 2021 Dec 1;242:113602. doi: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2021.113602. Epub 2021 Sep 20.
Neurobiological models indicate that acute stress facilitates bottom-up stimulus processing while impairing top-down executive control. To test this hypothesis, the present study investigated the effects of acute stress on behavioural and electrophysiological measures of human attentional networks, and behavioural measures of working memory. Forty-five female participants (M = 22.1, SD = 2.4) performed the Attention Network Test (ANT) and the n-back task before and after the Maastricht Acute Stress Test (MAST; n = 23) or a non-stressful MAST-placebo (n = 22). Subjective distress ratings and salivary cortisol concentrations revealed a successful stress induction. Increased salivary cortisol at baseline was associated with slower reaction times across both tasks, suggesting a general detrimental effect of cortisol on cognitive functioning. Despite these findings, however, the hypothesised effects of the acute stress manipulation were not found for either task. Supplementary analyses indicated that these results were unrelated to the magnitude or duration of the stress response. Our results therefore suggest the standard version of the ANT may be insensitive to the effects of acute stress, and that higher cognitive loads may be necessary to observe stress effects on the n-back task.
神经生物学模型表明，急性应激会促进自下而上的刺激处理，同时损害自上而下的执行控制。为了验证这一假设，本研究调查了急性应激对人类注意力网络的行为和电生理指标以及工作记忆行为指标的影响。45名女性参与者（M = 22.1，SD = 2.4）在马斯特里赫特急性应激测试（MAST；n = 23）或无应激的MAST安慰剂（n = 22）前后进行了注意力网络测试（ANT）和n-back任务。主观痛苦评分和唾液皮质醇浓度显示应激诱导成功。基线时唾液皮质醇增加与两项任务的反应时间变慢有关，表明皮质醇对认知功能有普遍的有害影响。然而，尽管有这些发现，但在任何一项任务中均未发现急性应激操作的假设效应。补充分析表明，这些结果与应激反应的强度或持续时间无关。因此，我们的结果表明，ANT的标准版可能对急性应激的影响不敏感，并且可能需要更高的认知负荷才能观察到应激对n-back任务的影响。
