TY - JOUR
T1 - Time-dependent effects of psychosocial stress on the contextualization of neutral memories
AU - Sep, Milou S.C.
AU - van Ast, Vanessa A.
AU - Gorter, Rosalie
AU - Joëls, Marian
AU - Geuze, Elbert
N1 - Funding Information: This research was supported by the Dutch Ministry of Defense . Milou Sep is supported by a personal grant, which is part of Graduate Program project #022.003.003 from The Netherlands Organization of Scientific Research . Vanessa van Ast is supported by a VENI NWO grant (#451.16.021) from The Netherlands Organization of Scientific Research . The sponsors had no involvement in the presented research. Publisher Copyright: © 2019 The Authors
PY - 2019/10
Y1 - 2019/10
N2 - Memories about stressful experiences need to be both specific and generalizable to adequately guide future behavior. Memory strength is influenced by emotional significance, and contextualization (i.e., encoding experiences with their contextual details) enables selective context-dependent retrieval and protects against overgeneralization. The current randomized-controlled study investigated how the early and late phase of the endogenous stress response affects the contextualization of neutral and negative information. One hundred healthy male participants were randomly divided into three experimental groups that performed encoding either 1) without stress (control), 2) immediately after acute stress (early) or 3) two hours after acute stress (late). Stress was induced via the Trier Social Stress Test and salivary alpha-amylase and cortisol levels were measured throughout the experiment. In the Memory Contextualization Task, neutral and angry faces (items) were depicted against unique context pictures during encoding. During testing 24 h later, context-dependent recognition memory of the items was assessed by presenting these in either congruent or incongruent contexts (relative to encoding). Multilevel analyses revealed that neutral information was more contextualized when encoding took place two hours after psychosocial stress, than immediately after the stressor. Results suggest that the late effects in the unique, time-dependent sequence of a healthy endogenous stress response, could complement reduced contextualization immediately after stress. The contextualization of negative information was not influenced by psychosocial stress, as opposed to earlier reported effects of exogenous hydrocortisone administration. An imbalance between the early and late effects of the endogenous stress response could increase vulnerability for stress-related psychopathology.
AB - Memories about stressful experiences need to be both specific and generalizable to adequately guide future behavior. Memory strength is influenced by emotional significance, and contextualization (i.e., encoding experiences with their contextual details) enables selective context-dependent retrieval and protects against overgeneralization. The current randomized-controlled study investigated how the early and late phase of the endogenous stress response affects the contextualization of neutral and negative information. One hundred healthy male participants were randomly divided into three experimental groups that performed encoding either 1) without stress (control), 2) immediately after acute stress (early) or 3) two hours after acute stress (late). Stress was induced via the Trier Social Stress Test and salivary alpha-amylase and cortisol levels were measured throughout the experiment. In the Memory Contextualization Task, neutral and angry faces (items) were depicted against unique context pictures during encoding. During testing 24 h later, context-dependent recognition memory of the items was assessed by presenting these in either congruent or incongruent contexts (relative to encoding). Multilevel analyses revealed that neutral information was more contextualized when encoding took place two hours after psychosocial stress, than immediately after the stressor. Results suggest that the late effects in the unique, time-dependent sequence of a healthy endogenous stress response, could complement reduced contextualization immediately after stress. The contextualization of negative information was not influenced by psychosocial stress, as opposed to earlier reported effects of exogenous hydrocortisone administration. An imbalance between the early and late effects of the endogenous stress response could increase vulnerability for stress-related psychopathology.
KW - Context
KW - Emotion
KW - HPA-axis
KW - Memory
KW - SNS
KW - Stress
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85068266099&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - https://pure.uva.nl/ws/files/51272710/1_s2.0_S0306453019305724_mmc1.docx
UR - https://pure.uva.nl/ws/files/51272712/1_s2.0_S0306453019305724_mmc2.docx
U2 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2019.06.021
DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2019.06.021
M3 - Article
C2 - 31280058
SN - 0306-4530
VL - 108
SP - 140
EP - 149
JO - Psychoneuroendocrinology
JF - Psychoneuroendocrinology
ER -