TY  - JOUR
A1  - Wirkner, Janine
A1  - Ventura-Bort, Carlos
A1  - Schwabe, Lars
A1  - Hamm, Alfons O.
A1  - Weymar, Mathias
T1  - Chronic stress and emotion: Differential effects on attentional processing and recognition memory
JF  - Psychoneuroendocrinology
N2  - Previous research indicates that acute stress around the time of learning facilitates attention and memory for emotionally salient information. Despite accumulating evidence for these acute stress effects, less is known about the role of chronic stress. In the present study, we therefore tested emotional and neutral scene processing and later recognition memory in female participants using hair cortisol concentrations as a biological marker for chronic stress. Event-related potentials recorded during picture viewing indicated enhanced late positive potentials (LPPs) for emotional, relative to neutral contents. These brain potentials varied as a function of long-term hair cortisol levels: hair-cortisol levels were positively related to overall LPP amplitudes. Results from recognition memory testing one week after encoding revealed better memory for emotional relative to neutral scenes. Hair-cortisol levels, however, were related to poorer memory accuracy. Taken together, our results indicate that chronic stress enhanced attentional processing during encoding of new stimuli and impaired later recognition memory. Results are discussed with regard to putatively opposite effects of chronic stress on certain brain regions (e.g., amygdala and hippocampus).
KW  - Chronic stress
KW  - Emotion
KW  - Event-related potential
KW  - Late positive potential
KW  - Memory
KW  - Hair cortisol
Y1  - 2019
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2019.05.008
SN  - 0306-4530
VL  - 107
SP  - 93
EP  - 97
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - Oxford
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Meier, Jacqueline Katharina
A1  - Weymar, Mathias
A1  - Schwabe, Lars
T1  - Stress alters the neural context for building new memories
JF  - Journal of cognitive neuroscience
N2  - Stressful events affect mnemonic processing, in particular for emotionally arousing events. Previous research on the mechanisms underlying stress effects on human memory focused on stress-induced changes in the neural activity elicited by a stimulus. We tested an alternative mechanism and hypothesized that stress may already alter the neural context for successful memory formation, reflected in the neural activity preceding a stimulus. Therefore, 69 participants underwent a stress or control procedure before encoding neutral and negative pictures. During encoding, we recorded high-density EEG and analyzed-based on multivariate searchlight analyses-oscillatory activity and cross-frequency coupling patterns before stimulus onset that were predictive of memory tested 24 hr later. Prestimulus theta predicted subsequent memory in controls but not in stressed participants. Instead, prestimulus gamma predicted successful memory formation after stress, specifically for emotional material. Likewise, stress altered the patterns of prestimulus theta-beta and theta-gamma phase-amplitude coupling predictive of subsequent memory, again depending on the emotionality of the presented material. Our data suggest that stress changes the neural context for building new memories, tuning this neural context specifically to the encoding of emotionally salient events. These findings point to a yet unknown mechanism through which stressful events may change (emotional) memory formation.
Y1  - 2020
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn_a_01613
SN  - 0898-929X
SN  - 1530-8898
VL  - 32
IS  - 12
SP  - 2226
EP  - 2240
PB  - MIT Press
CY  - Cambridge
ER  -