Acute stress promotes effort mobilization for safety-related goals.

Although the acute stress response is a highly adaptive survival mechanism, much remains unknown about how its activation impacts our decisions and actions. Based on its resource-mobilizing function, here we hypothesize that this intricate psychophysiological process may increase the willingness (motivation) to engage in effortful, energy-consuming, actions. Across two experiments (n = 80, n = 84), participants exposed to a validated stress-induction protocol, compared to a no-stress control condition, exhibited an increased willingness to exert physical effort (grip force) in the service of avoiding the possibility of experiencing aversive electrical stimulation (threat-of-shock), but not for the acquisition of rewards (money).

The moderating role of conscientiousness in the temporal association of stress on sleep.

Personality traits have been associated with sleep problems and stress experience. However, their impact on objective sleep and the temporal relationship of stress on sleep has remained elusive. This study examined whether daytime stress predicts sleep the following night, and the moderating role of neuroticism and conscientiousness in this relationship.

The Index of Intrusion Control (IIC): Capturing individual variability in intentional intrusion control in the laboratory.

Intrusive memories can be downregulated using intentional memory control, as measured via the Think/No-Think paradigm. In this task, participants retrieve or suppress memories in response to an associated reminder cue. After each suppression trial, participants rate whether the association intruded into awareness.

Controlling intrusive thoughts of future fears under stress.

Negative outlooks of our future may foster unwanted and intrusive thoughts. To some extent, individuals have control over their ability to suppress intrusions and downregulate their frequency. Acute stress impairs intentional suppression, leading to an increased frequency of intrusions.

Does stress consistently favor habits over goal-directed behaviors? Data from two preregistered exact replication studies.

Instrumental learning is controlled by two distinct parallel systems: goal-directed (action-outcome) and habitual (stimulus-response) processes. Seminal research by Schwabe and Wolf (2009, 2010) has demonstrated that stress renders behavior more habitual by decreasing goal-directed control. More recent studies yielded equivocal evidence for a stress-induced shift towards habitual responding, yet these studies used different paradigms to evaluate instrumental learning or used different stressors.

Spatio-temporal theta pattern dissimilarity in the right centro-parietal area during memory generalization.

Generalization across past events may guide our action in novel situations. Although generalization is a fundamental memory process, its neural underpinnings are not fully understood yet. In the present experiment, we combinedElectroencephalography(EEG) with multivariate representational similarity analysis (RSA) to examine in particular the role of spatio-temporal patterns of theta oscillations known to be important for associative memory processes, in memory generalization.

Cortisol reactivity impairs suppression-induced forgetting.

To some extent, we can shape our recollections by intentionally remembering certain experiences while trying to forget others, for example, by intentional suppression. Acute stress impairs suppression-induced forgetting of memories. It is unclear, however, whether these deficits are a direct consequence of the acute stress-induced cortisol response.

Volume and Connectivity Differences in Brain Networks Associated with Cognitive Constructs of Binge Eating.

Bulimia nervosa (BN) and binge eating disorder (BED) are characterized by episodes of eating large amounts of food while experiencing a loss of control. Recent studies suggest that the underlying causes of BN/BED consist of a complex system of environmental cues, atypical processing of food stimuli, altered behavioral responding, and structural/functional brain differences compared with healthy controls (HC). In this narrative review, we provide an integrative account of the brain networks associated with the three cognitive constructs most integral to BN and BED, namely increased reward sensitivity, decreased cognitive control, and altered negative affect and stress responding.

Stress enhances emotional memory-related theta oscillations in the medial temporal lobe.

Stressful events impact memory formation, in particular for emotionally arousing stimuli. Although these stress effects on emotional memory formation have potentially far-reaching implications, the underlying neural mechanisms are not fully understood. Specifically, the temporal processing dimension of the mechanisms involved in emotional memory formation under stress remains elusive.

The effects of acute stress on eyewitness memory: an integrative review for eyewitness researchers.

The eyewitness and fundamental memory research fields have investigated the effects of acute stress at encoding on memory performance for decades yet results often demonstrate contrasting conclusions. In this review, we first summarise findings on the effects of acute encoding stress on memory performance and discuss how these research fields often come to these diverging findings regarding the effects of encoding stress on memory performance. Next, we critically evaluate methodological choices that underpin these discrepancies, emphasising the strengths and limitations of different stress-memory experiments.

Facing stress: No effect of acute stress at encoding or retrieval on face recognition memory.

Eyewitnesses may experience stress during a crime and when attempting to identify the perpetrator subsequently. Laboratory studies can provide insight into how acute stress at encoding and retrieval affects memory performance. However, previous findings exploring this issue have been mixed.

Mitigating the negative effects of retrieval stress on memory: an arousal reappraisal intervention.

In a preregistered experiment, we examined the efficacy of arousal reappraisal as an intervention for reducing the negative effects of stress at retrieval on memory. Participants ( = 177) were semi-randomly assigned to one of three conditions: a Stress-intervention condition, a Stress-placebo condition, and a No-stress-placebo control condition. Participants viewed four images of complex, mildly negatively valenced scenes.

Examining the effect of stress on the flexible updating of avoidance responses.

Acute stress has been found to impair the flexible updating of stimulus - outcome associations. However, there is a lack of studies investigating the effect of acute stress on the flexible updating of stimulus-response associations, like active avoidance responses. The current study used an avoidance reversal learning paradigm to address this question.

The effects of stress on eyewitness memory: A survey of memory experts and laypeople.

This survey examined lay and expert beliefs about statements concerning stress effects on (eyewitness) memory. Thirty-seven eyewitness memory experts, 36 fundamental memory experts, and 109 laypeople endorsed, opposed, or selected don't know responses for a range of statements relating to the effects of stress at encoding and retrieval. We examined proportions in each group and differences between groups (eyewitness memory experts vs.

Balancing Between Goal-Directed and Habitual Responding Following Acute Stress.

Instrumental learning is regulated by two memory systems: a relatively rigid but efficient habit system and a flexible but resource-demanding goal-directed system. Previous work has demonstrated that exposure to acute stress may shift the balance between these systems toward the habitual system. In the current study, we used a 2-day outcome devaluation paradigm with a 75% reward contingency rate and altered food reward categories to replicate and extend our previous findings.

The interaction between stress and chronic pain through the lens of threat learning.

Stress and pain are interleaved at multiple levels - interacting and influencing each other. Both are modulated by psychosocial factors including fears, beliefs, and goals, and are served by overlapping neural substrates. One major contributing factor in the development and maintenance of chronic pain is threat learning, with pain as an emotionally-salient threat - or stressor.

Acute stress - but not aversive scene content - impairs spatial configuration learning.

Contextual learning pervades our perception and cognition and plays a critical role in adjusting to aversive and stressful events. Our ability to memorise spatial context has been studied extensively with the contextual cueing paradigm, in which participants search for targets among simple distractor cues and show search advantages for distractor configurations that repeat across trials. Mixed evidence suggests that confrontation with adversity can enhance as well as impair the contextual cueing effect.

Stress-induced reliance on habitual behavior is moderated by cortisol reactivity.

Instrumental learning, i.e., learning that specific behaviors lead to desired outcomes, occurs through goal-directed and habit memory systems.

Single-trial log transformation is optimal in frequency analysis of resting EEG alpha.

The appropriate definition and scaling of the magnitude of electroencephalogram (EEG) oscillations is an underdeveloped area. The aim of this study was to optimize the analysis of resting EEG alpha magnitude, focusing on alpha peak frequency and nonlinear transformation of alpha power. A family of nonlinear transforms, Box-Cox transforms, were applied to find the transform that (a) maximized a non-disputed effect: the increase in alpha magnitude when the eyes are closed (Berger effect), and (b) made the distribution of alpha magnitude closest to normal across epochs within each participant, or across participants.

Neuroendocrine stress responses predict catecholamine-dependent working memory-related dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activity.

It is generally thought that the effect of acute stress on higher-order functions such as working memory is, for an important part, mediated by central catecholamine activity. However, little is known about the association between neuroendocrine stress responses and catecholamine-dependent working memory-related brain function in the absence of stress. Here, we investigate for the first time in healthy humans (n = 18) how neuroendocrine responses to stress (cortisol and alpha-amylase) relate to fronto-parietal working memory activity changes in response to atomoxetine, a noradrenaline transporter inhibitor that selectively increases extracellular cortical dopamine and noradrenaline.

Memory dynamics under stress.

Stressful events have a major impact on memory. They modulate memory formation in a time-dependent manner, closely linked to the temporal profile of action of major stress mediators, in particular catecholamines and glucocorticoids. Shortly after stressor onset, rapidly acting catecholamines and fast, non-genomic glucocorticoid actions direct cognitive resources to the processing and consolidation of the ongoing threat.

Frontal EEG asymmetry during symptom provocation predicts subjective responses to intrusions in survivors with and without PTSD.

Studies suggest that frontal alpha asymmetry is closely linked to psychological adjustment following stressful experiences, such that more left-sided frontal activation during symptom provocation might predict lower levels of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Here, we tested whether frontal asymmetry at rest and during exposure to neutral, positive, negative, and trauma-related images would be associated with PTSD, and particularly with characteristic reexperiencing symptoms. Symptoms were assessed in trauma victims with (n = 24) and without PTSD (n = 15), using both retrospective measures and 1-week ambulatory assessments with a diary and a smartphone.

Negative mood-induction modulates default mode network resting-state functional connectivity in chronic depression.

Background: The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of sad mood on default mode network (DMN) resting-state connectivity in persons with chronic major depressive disorder (cMDD).

Methods: Participants with a diagnosis of cMDD (n=18) and age, gender and education level matched participants without a diagnosis of depression (n=18) underwent a resting-state fMRI scan, before and after a sad mood induction. The posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) was used as a seed for DMN functional connectivity across the two resting-state measurements.