Enhanced discriminative fear learning of phobia-irrelevant stimuli in spider-fearful individuals.

Avoidance is considered as a central hallmark of all anxiety disorders. The acquisition and expression of avoidance, which leads to the maintenance and exacerbation of pathological fear is closely linked to Pavlovian and operant conditioning processes. Changes in conditionability might represent a key feature of all anxiety disorders but the exact nature of these alterations might vary across different disorders.

ADRA2B genotype differentially modulates stress-induced neural activity in the amygdala and hippocampus during emotional memory retrieval.

Rationale: Noradrenaline interacts with stress hormones in the amygdala and hippocampus to enhance emotional memory consolidation, but the noradrenergic-glucocorticoid interaction at retrieval, where stress impairs memory, is less understood.

Objectives: We used a genetic neuroimaging approach to investigate whether a genetic variation of the noradrenergic system impacts stress-induced neural activity in amygdala and hippocampus during recognition of emotional memory.

Methods: This study is based on genotype-dependent reanalysis of data from our previous publication (Li et al.

Hyper-responsiveness to acute stress, emotional problems and poorer memory in former preterm children.

The prevalence of preterm birth (PTB) is high worldwide, especially in developing countries like Brazil. PTB is marked by a stressful environment in intra- as well as extrauterine life, which can affect neurodevelopment and hormonal and physiological systems and lead to long-term negative outcomes. Nevertheless, little is known about PTB and related outcomes later on in childhood.

The socially evaluated cold-pressor test (SECPT) for groups: effects of repeated administration of a combined physiological and psychological stressor.

The combined administration of physiological (cold pressor) and psychological (social-evaluative threat) stressors, as in the socially evaluated cold pressor test (SECPT; Schwabe et al., 2008) activates the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Thus far, the SECPT has been administered exclusively to individual participants, which requires substantial personal effort and time.

Glucocorticoids boost stimulus-response memory formation in humans.

Stress affects memory beyond hippocampus-dependent spatial or episodic memory processes. In particular, stress may influence also striatum-dependent stimulus-response (S-R) memory processes. Rodent studies point to an important role of glucocorticoids in the modulation of S-R memory.

Effects of postretrieval-extinction learning on return of contextually controlled cued fear.

Reactivation of an already consolidated memory makes it labile for a period of several hrs, which are required for its reconsolidation. Evidence suggests that the return of conditioned fear through spontaneous recovery, reinstatement, or renewal can be prevented by blockading this reconsolidation process using pharmacological or behavioral interventions. Postretrieval-extinction learning has been shown to prevent the return of cued fear in humans using fear-irrelevant stimuli, as well as cued and contextual fear in rodents.

Stress, memory, and the hippocampus.

Stress hormones, i.e. cortisol in human and cortisone in rodents, influence a wide range of cognitive functions, including hippocampus-based declarative memory performance.

Stress intensifies demands on response selection during action cascading processes.

Stress has been shown to modulate a number of cognitive processes including action control. These functions are important in daily life and are mediated by various cognitive subprocesses. However, it is unknown if stress affects the whole processing cascade, or exerts specific effects on a restricted subset of processes involved in the chaining of actions.

Exposure to stress attenuates fear retrieval in healthy men.

The stress hormone cortisol reduces retrieval of emotional memories, which has been suggested to support the treatment of psychiatric disorders characterized by exaggerated fear-related memories. Indeed, studies in patients with anxiety disorders have indicated that the success of exposure therapy can be enhanced with accompanying cortisol administration. Fear renewal refers to the clinically relevant phenomenon that successfully extinguished fear can return after a context change.

Timing matters: temporal dynamics of stress effects on memory retrieval.

Stress may impair memory retrieval. This retrieval impairment has been attributed to the action of the stress hormone cortisol, which is released with a delay of several minutes after a stressful encounter. Hence, most studies tested memory retrieval 20-30 min after stress, when the stress-induced cortisol increase peaks.

Implicit need for achievement predicts attenuated cortisol responses to difficult tasks.

The present research tested the hypothesis that the implicit need for achievement (n Achievement) predicts attenuated cortisol (C) responses to difficult tasks, because it represents a propensity to view difficulty as a cue to mastery reward. In two studies, n Achievement was assessed through content-coding of imaginative stories and salivary C was assessed both at baseline and post-task. In Study 1 ( = 108 US students), n Achievement predicted an attenuated C response to a one-on-one competition in the laboratory, regardless of whether participants won or lost.

Stress and decision making: neural correlates of the interaction between stress, executive functions, and decision making under risk.

Stress and additional load on the executive system, produced by a parallel working memory task, impair decision making under risk. However, the combination of stress and a parallel task seems to preserve the decision-making performance [e.g.

Effects of acute psychosocial stress on neural activity to emotional and neutral faces in a face recognition memory paradigm.

Previous studies have shown that acute psychosocial stress impairs recognition of declarative memory and that emotional material is especially sensitive to this effect. Animal studies suggest a central role of the amygdala which modulates memory processes in hippocampus, prefrontal cortex and other brain areas. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate neural correlates of stress-induced modulation of emotional recognition memory in humans.

Evaluation of spinosad for the oral treatment and control of flea infestations on cats in Europe.

Methods: An ectoparasiticide containing spinosad was evaluated as an oral formulation for cats. Two European laboratory studies and a European multicentre field efficacy and safety study assessed the use of a chewable tablet formulation of spinosad at a dose range of 50-75 mg/kg for treatment and control of flea infestations on cats.

Results: The studies with experimentally infested cats consistently demonstrated persistent activity against Ctenocephalides felis with >98 per cent efficacy at four weeks post-treatment.

Sex differences in stress effects on response and spatial memory formation.

Stress and stress hormones are known to affect learning and memory processes. However, although effects of stress on hippocampus-dependent declarative learning and memory are well-documented, relatively little attention has been paid to the impact of stress on striatum-dependent stimulus-response (S-R) learning and memory. Recent evidence indicates that glucocorticoid stress hormones shortly after learning enhance S-R memory consolidation, whereas stress prior to retention testing impairs S-R memory retrieval.

The impact of self-reported childhood trauma on emotion regulation in borderline personality disorder and major depression.

Early life stress is said to play a critical role in the development of borderline personality disorder (BPD) and major depressive disorder (MDD), but the underlying mediating factors remain uncertain. This study aimed to investigate self-reported childhood trauma, emotion regulation difficulties, and their associations in a sample of BPD (n = 49) and MDD (n = 48) patients and healthy control participants (n = 63). Multiple regressions were used to evaluate the impact of the quality and severity of self-reported childhood trauma on self-reported emotion regulation.

Perceptual complexity, rather than valence or arousal accounts for distracter-induced overproductions of temporal durations.

For humans and other species, the ability to estimate the physical passage of time is of fundamental importance for perceptual, cognitive or motor functions. Despite this importance, any subjective estimation of temporal durations not only depends on the temporal dynamics of the to-be-timed stimulus or event, but also can be distorted by non-temporal perceptual, cognitive, and emotional effects. This study aimed to further explore critical stimulus characteristics modulating distracter-induced distortions in human time-reproduction.

Odors as effective retrieval cues for stressful episodes.

Olfactory information seems to play a special role in memory due to the fast and direct processing of olfactory information in limbic areas like the amygdala and the hippocampus. This has led to the assumption that odors can serve as effective retrieval cues for autobiographic memories, especially emotional memories. The current study sought to investigate whether an olfactory cue can serve as an effective retrieval cue for memories of a stressful episode.

Stress effects on framed decisions: there are differences for gains and losses.

Recent studies have shown that acute stress can lead to riskier decision making. Yet, the underlying mechanisms of the stress effects on decisions under risk remain poorly understood. To gain a better understanding of decision-making processes and potential strategy application under stress, we investigated decision making in pure gain and loss domains with unequal expected values (EVs) across alternatives.

The type of implicit motive enactment is modulated by sex hormones in naturally cycling women.

Sex hormones have been reported to dynamically modulate the expression of implicit motives, a concept that has previously been thought to be relatively stable over time. This study investigates to what extent the need for affiliation, power, and achievement, as well as the form of enactment of these needs as measured with the Operant Motive Test (OMT), is affected by cycle-phase dependent sex hormone fluctuations. In addition to measuring the strength of motive expression, the OMT also captures different forms of motive enactment.

Stress enhances the consolidation of extinction memory in a predictive learning task.

Extinction is not always permanent, as indicated by several types of recovery effects, such as the renewal effect, which may occur after a context change and points towards the importance of contextual cues. Strengthening the retrieval of extinction memory is a crucial aim of extinction-based psychotherapeutic treatments of anxiety disorders to prevent relapse. Stress is known to modulate learning and memory, with mostly enhancing effects on memory consolidation.

Acute glucocorticoid effects on response inhibition in borderline personality disorder.

Introduction: Growing evidence suggests inhibition dysfunctions in borderline personality disorder (BPD). Moreover, abnormalities in hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis functioning have also been found in BPD patients. In healthy individuals, response inhibition has been sensitive to acute stress, and previous research indicates that effects mediated by the HPA axis become particularly apparent when emotional stimuli are processed.

Cortisol modifies extinction learning of recently acquired fear in men.

Exposure therapy builds on the mechanism of fear extinction leading to decreased fear responses. How the stress hormone cortisol affects brain regions involved in fear extinction in humans is unknown. For this reason, we tested 32 men randomly assigned to receive either 30 mg hydrocortisone or placebo 45 min before fear extinction.

Mineralocorticoid receptor blockade prevents stress-induced modulation of multiple memory systems in the human brain.

Background: Accumulating evidence suggests that stress may orchestrate the engagement of multiple memory systems in the brain. In particular, stress is thought to favor dorsal striatum-dependent procedural over hippocampus-dependent declarative memory. However, the neuroendocrine mechanisms underlying these modulatory effects of stress remain elusive, especially in humans.

Stress-induced enhancement of response inhibition depends on mineralocorticoid receptor activation.

Stress is a well-known modulator of cognitive functions. These effects are, at least in part, mediated by glucocorticoid stress hormones which act via two receptor types in the brain, glucocorticoid receptors (GR) and mineralocorticoid receptors (MR). Here, we examined whether stress affects inhibitory control processes and, if so, whether these effects are mediated by the MR.