Impaired Memory Retrieval after Psychosocial Stress in Healthy Young Men

Glucocorticoids (GCs) are known to modulate memory in animals and humans. One popular model suggests that stress or GC treatment enhances memory consolidation while impairing delayed memory retrieval. Studies in humans have documented that treatment with GCs impairs delayed memory retrieval. Similar alterations after exposure to stress have not been observed thus far. In the present study, 19 young healthy male subjects were exposed to either a standardized psychosocial laboratory stressor (Trier Social Stress Test) or a control condition in a crossover manner. After both treatments, retrieval of a word list (learned 24 h earlier) containing 10 neutral, 10 negative, and 10 positive words was tested. The…

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  Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft