title: Stress, glucocorticoids and memory: implications for treating fear-related disorders.
abstract: Glucocorticoid stress hormones are crucially involved in modulating mnemonic processing of emotionally arousing experiences. They enhance the consolidation of new memories, including those that extinguish older memories, but impair the retrieval of information stored in long-term memory. As strong aversive memories lie at the core of several fear-related disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder and phobias, the memory-modulating properties of glucocorticoids have recently become of considerable translational interest. Clinical trials have provided the first evidence that glucocorticoid-based pharmacotherapies aimed at attenuating aversive memories might be helpful in the treatment of fear-related disorders. Here, we review important advances in the understanding of how glucocorticoids mediate stress effects on memory processes, and discuss the translational potential of these new conceptual insights.
authors.affiliation: Transfaculty Research Platform, University of Basel, CH-4055, Basel, Switzerland.|Division of Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, University of Basel, CH-4055, Basel, Switzerland.|University Psychiatric Clinics, University of Basel, CH-4012, Basel, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Dominique
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: de Quervain
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Psychology, Institute of Psychology, University of Hamburg, 20146 Hamburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Lars
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Schwabe
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Radboud University Medical Center, 6500 HB Nijmegen, The Netherlands.|Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, 6525 EN Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Benno
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Roozendaal
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D005108:Extinction, Psychological / Q000187:drug effects*; D005239:Fear / Q000187:drug effects*; D005938:Glucocorticoids / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D006801:Humans; D008568:Memory / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000502:physiology; D013313:Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000523:psychology; D013315:Stress, Psychological
chemical_list: D005938:Glucocorticoids