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Psychosocial stress induces working memory impairments in an n-back paradigm.
Abstract
In contrast to the substantial number of studies investigating the effects of stress on declarative memory, effects of stress on working memory have received less attention. We compared working memory (numerical n-back task with single digits) in 40 men exposed either to psychosocial stress (Trier Social Stress Test (TSST)) or a control condition. Task difficulty was varied using two conditions (2-back vs. 3-back). Salivary cortisol (as a marker of hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) activity) and salivary alpha-amylase (sAA as a marker of sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activity) were assessed immediately before and three times after the stress or control condition. As expected stress resulted in an increase in cortisol, sAA, and negative affect. Subjects exposed to stress showed significant working memory impairments in both workload conditions. The analysis of variance indicated a main effect of stress for reaction time as well as accuracy. In addition, for reaction time a stress-block interaction occurred. Follow up tests revealed that only during the first block at each level of difficulty performance was significantly impaired by stress. Thus, the effects of stress became smaller the longer the task was performed. Results provide further evidence for impaired working memory after acute stress and illustrate the time course of this phenomenon.
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“In humans experimental or pharmacological stress studies have reported inconsistent effects with impairments as well as enhancements being reported [42], [46], [47].”
From Dose-dependent effects of endotoxin on neurobehavioral functions in humans (2011) · cites this paper as [42]
In the citing paper
“Thus, in the current study we employed a computerized n-back paradigm (2-back version), a well-evaluated sensitive tool to analyze working memory functions [34], [41], [42].”
From Dose-dependent effects of endotoxin on neurobehavioral functions in humans (2011) · cites this paper as [42]
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“Since the physiological stress response seems to modulate prefrontal cortical functions (Fuchs et al., 2006; Diamond et al., 2007; McEwen, 2007) it might be possible that n-back performance is particularly impaired when the task processing strongly occupies the cognitive resources.”
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Metadata
- Authors
- Schoofs, D., Preuß, D., & Wolf, O. T.
- Affiliations
- Ruhr University Bochum (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Wolf, Oliver T.
- ORCID
- Wolf, Oliver T.
- Venue
- Psychoneuroendocrinology
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2008-06
- Volume
- 33
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 643-653
- ISSN
- 0306-4530 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2106673407
- Semantic Scholar
- 87cef5ba5bb29154704cb81de2376ff5360b6a6f
- Cited by
- 483
- References
- 93
- Citations by year
- 2026: 13 · 2025: 19 · 2024: 20 · 2023: 22 · 2022: 34 · 2021: 36 · 2020: 37 · 2019: 35 · 2018: 26 · 2017: 27 · 2016: 40 · 2015: 24 · 2014: 29 · 2013: 27 · 2012: 21
- FWCI
- 11.00
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Psychoneuroendocrinology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
- Universität Bielefeld
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Behavioral Neuroscience › Stress Responses and Cortisol
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Abilities and Testing
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Keywords
- psychosocial stress, working memory, n-back task, Trier Social Stress Test, salivary cortisol, salivary amylase, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, sympathetic nervous system, negative affect, acute stress, task difficulty, reaction time, cognitive performance
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Affect, alpha-Amylases, Analysis of Variance, Humans, Hydrocortisone, Male, Memory, Memory Disorders, Reaction Time, Saliva, Stress, Psychological, Task Performance and Analysis, Time Factors
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