title: Cortisol involvement in mechanisms of behavioral inhibition.
abstract: We studied whether baseline cortisol is associated with post-error slowing, a measure that depends upon brain areas involved in behavioral inhibition. Moreover, we studied whether this association holds after controlling for positive associations with behavioral inhibition scores and error-related negativity (ERN) amplitudes that cortisol and post-error slowing may share. Healthy female volunteers performed a flanker task. Cortisol was independently positively associated with post-error slowing and the ERN, supporting hypotheses that cortisol is involved in behavioral inhibition. Additionally, cortisol mediated an association between ERN and more post-error slowing, which suppressed a direct association between ERN and less post-error slowing. The results are relevant, not only for researchers of behavioral inhibition, but also for researchers of the basic mechanisms of the ERN and post-error slowing, and may bring those literatures together.
authors.affiliation: Experimental and Work Psychology, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands. M.Tops@rug.n1
authors.forename: Mattie
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tops
authors.forename: Maarten A S
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Boksem
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006854:Hydrocortisone / Q000378:metabolism*; D007266:Inhibition, Psychological; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012463:Saliva / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D006854:Hydrocortisone