title: Increased cortisol levels in cognitively challenging situations are beneficial in young but not older subjects.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Adaptation to stressful situations changes with increasing age. This is also reflected in age-related differences in effects of acute stress on, e.g., episodic memory. Less is known about age-related differences of the cognitive effects of individual stress responses to challenging situations.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To investigate the influence of the individual cortisol response (as a marker for the individual stress level) on behavioral and neural measures during a challenging memory paradigm.
  
  
  METHODS
  Twenty young and 12 older subjects were scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging during encoding and retrieval of spatial contextual information. Salivary cortisol levels were measured before and after scanning.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A multiple regression analysis of behavioral data showed an interaction effect of age and cortisol response on memory for the items and their spatial context during retrieval due to increased accuracy with increasing cortisol responses in young compared to old subjects. During encoding, this was reflected in a positive effect of the cortisol response on prefrontal activity in young but not in older subjects. During retrieval, there was a negative effect of the cortisol response on brain activity in the hippocampus and prefrontal regions in older but not in young subjects.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The data suggest an increased efficiency to encode items and their context with increasing cortisol responses in young subjects, and a decreased efficiency to retrieve information with increasing cortisol responses in older subjects. We conclude that neuroendocrine responses are differentially associated with behavioral and neural measures in cognitively challenging situations in young and older volunteers.
authors.affiliation: Cognitive Neurology Section, Institute of Neuroscience and Biophysics-Medicine (INB-3), Research Centre Jülich, Jülich, Germany. j.kukolja@fz-juelich.de
authors.forename: Juraj
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kukolja
authors.forename: Christiane M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Thiel
authors.forename: Oliver T
authors.initials: OT
authors.lastname: Wolf
authors.forename: Gereon R
authors.initials: GR
authors.lastname: Fink
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000378:metabolism*; D026686:Beneficence; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006854:Hydrocortisone / Q000032:analysis / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008297:Male; D008953:Models, Anatomic; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012463:Saliva / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000188:drug therapy*; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers; D006854:Hydrocortisone