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Stressed Memories: How Acute Stress Affects Memory Formation in Humans
Open accessAbstract
Stressful, aversive events are extremely well remembered. Such a declarative memory enhancement is evidently beneficial for survival, but the same mechanism may become maladaptive and culminate in mental diseases such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Stress hormones are known to enhance postlearning consolidation of aversive memories but are also thought to have immediate effects on attentional, sensory, and mnemonic processes at memory formation. Despite their significance for our understanding of the etiology of stress-related mental disorders, effects of acute stress at memory formation, and their brain correlates at the system scale, remain elusive. Using an integrated experimental approach, we probed the neural correlates of memory formation while participants underwent a controlled stress induction procedure in a crossover design. Physiological (cortisol level, heart rate, and pupil dilation) and subjective measures confirmed acute stress. Remarkably, reduced hippocampal activation during encoding predicted stress-enhanced memory performance, both within and between participants. Stress, moreover, amplified early visual and inferior temporal responses, suggesting that hypervigilant processing goes along with enhanced inferior temporal information reduction to relay a higher proportion of task-relevant information to the hippocampus. Thus, acute stress affects neural correlates of memory formation in an unexpected manner, the understanding of which may elucidate mechanisms underlying psychological trauma etiology.
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“Fundamental memory researchers tend to use less complex stimuli, such as words, static pictures, or slideshows (e.g., Domes et al., 2002; Henckens et al., 2009; Payne et al., 2006; Schwabe et al., 2008).”
From The effects of acute stress on eyewitness memory: An integrative review for eyewitness researchers (2021) · cites this paper as Henckens et al., 2009
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Metadata
- Authors
- Henckens, M. J. A. G., Hermans, E. J., Pu, Z., Joëls, M., & Fernández, G.
- Affiliations
- Radboud University Nijmegen (NL)
- University of Amsterdam (NL)
- Corresponding author
- Henckens, Marloes J. A. G.
- Venue
- The Journal of Neuroscience
- Publisher
- Society for Neuroscience
- Published
- 2009-08-12
- Volume
- 29
- Issue
- 32
- Pages
- 10111-10119
- ISSN
- 0270-6474 (ISSN-L)
- 1529-2401
- PMC
- PMC6664979
- OpenAlex
- W2158213171
- Cited by
- 295
- References
- 64
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 21 · 2023: 16 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 21 · 2020: 17 · 2019: 27 · 2018: 17 · 2017: 23 · 2016: 23 · 2015: 12 · 2014: 16 · 2013: 24 · 2012: 14
- FWCI
- 7.90
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Journal of Neuroscience (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- UvA-DARE (University of Amsterdam) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- Radboud Repository (Radboud University) (submittedVersion)
- Radboud Repository (Radboud University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (918.66.613)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory Processes and Influences
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Behavioral Neuroscience › Stress Responses and Cortisol
- Keywords
- acute stress, memory formation, post-traumatic stress disorder, hippocampal activation, memory encoding, stress hormones, cortisol, stress induction, visual cortex, inferior temporal cortex, hypervigilance, neural correlates of memory, psychological trauma
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Brain Mapping, Heart Rate, Hippocampus, Humans, Hydrocortisone, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Pattern Recognition, Visual, Photic Stimulation, Pupil, Surveys and Questionnaires, Mental Recall, Saliva, Stress, Psychological, Temporal Lobe, Cross-Over Studies, Young Adult
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