The effects of exposure to an acute naturalistic stressor on working memory, state anxiety and salivary cortisol concentrations

Abstract

Exposure to an acute naturalistic stressor induces both psychological and physiological changes in humans. The two studies reported here explored the impact of exposure to an acute naturalistic stressor on state anxiety, working memory and HPA axis activation (salivary cortisol). In both experiments, ten healthy male participants were exposed to an acute naturalistic stressor, helicopter underwater evacuation training (HUET), and their physiological and behavioural responses before (first study) and after (second study) the stressor were compared to ten non-stressed controls. The results of both experiments showed that working memory performance was preserved during anticipation of an acute stressor, but impairments were observed immediately after stress exposure. Participants reported significantly higher state anxiety levels during anticipation and following stress exposure, whereas significant elevations in cortisol levels were only observed 25 min post exposure to stress, but not before or immediately after stress exposure. The results of both experiments demonstrated a dissociation between behavioural and biochemical measures and provided evidence for a dissociation of the effects of stress on cognitive and physiological measures depending on the time of testing, with cognitive impairments most evident following stress exposure.

Shared Mind: Communication, Decision Making, and Autonomy in Serious Illness

“…Faced with complex, ambiguous, and emotionally laden circumstances (cognitive overload), a person will tend to ignore data, simplify tasks, and make hasty decisions, that is, revert to rules of thumb and stereotypes rather than explore the full range of his or her values and the scientifi c data. [30][31][32] Thus, seriously ill patients may need, and often seek, help from others to recall and process information. Clinicians also suffer from cognitive overload, increasing their propensity to rely on similar mental shortcuts and not question their own oversimplifi cations.…”

The Effect of Mood-Context on Visual Recognition and Recall Memory

“…For example constrictions in working memory or neurochemical changes have both been shown to reduce people's ability to encode material into declarative memory (Robinson et al, 2008 andKirschbaum et al, 1996). As a result researchers should remember that attempts to improve memory by reinstating mood contexts could fail simply because the material has never entered the long-term memory.…”

“…First, when exposed to an extreme stressor people display marked neurophysiological changes (such as increases in the level of cortisol; Dickerson & Kemeny, 2004) which can impair the formation of declarative memories (Kirschbaum, Wolf, May, et al, 1996). Second, increases in novel environmental stimuli or anxiety associated with exposure to extreme environments can lead to working memory constrictions (Leach & Griffith, 2008;Robinson, Sunram-Lea, Leach & Owen-Lynch, 2008) resulting in a failure to rehearse and so encode memories into a longer-term store. As a result it could be that people experiencing high levels of stress and arousal may fail to encode information due to specific neurochemical changes or working memory constrictions.…”

“…Therefore this study explored whether cases of real-world forgetting could have been the result of a mismatch between the internal mood state at learning and at retrieval. As exposure to extreme stressors may lead to a failure to encode information (Kirschbaum et al, 1996;Leach & Griffith, 2008;Robinson et al, 2008) this study explored whether exposure to a mild stressor (horror film clips) could induce a mood dependency effect. Importantly, unlike previous research which has examined forgetting in stressful environments (e.g.…”

Intérêt des protège-dents pour l’amélioration des performances physiques et sportives : revue de 50 ans de recherche médicale

“…[35]. La mesure du taux de cortisol dans la salive est un biomarqueur pertinent et non invasif permettant d'évaluer le niveau de la réponse de stress d'un individu [36].…”