title: Glucocorticoid release and memory consolidation in men and women.
abstract: Glucocorticoid hormones have been shown to enhance memory consolidation when applied at low doses posttraining, but are ineffective or impair memory at high doses. In a test of whether this quadratic relationship also exists for endogenously released glucocorticoids, healthy men and women received cold-pressor stress (CPS) or a control procedure immediately after reading a relatively neutral story and were tested for retention 1 week later. Cortisol levels in response to the stressor were assayed from saliva. CPS significantly elevated salivary cortisol in both sexes, but enhanced memory only in male subjects. Among CPS-treated male subjects, there was a significant quadratic correlation between cortisol release posttraining and subsequent memory. Thus, these findings represent the first demonstration of an inverted-U relationship between activity of endogenous stress hormones and human memory.
authors.affiliation: 200 Bonney Research Laboratory, Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA. jandrean@uci.edu
authors.forename: Joseph M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Andreano
authors.forename: Larry
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Cahill
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006854:Hydrocortisone / Q000032:analysis / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D012153:Retention, Psychology; D012463:Saliva / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: D006854:Hydrocortisone