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Stress during Survival Memory Retrieval: Adaptive or Not?

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posted on 2017-07-17, 00:00 authored by Stephen M. Mattingly

Memory is theorized to promote survival, and stimuli encoded in a survival context have been shown to be better remembered relative to a variety of other encoding techniques. Being able to retrieve survival relevant information during stress can promote survival. Stress can also promote survival, and the stress response of the Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) axis has been shown to change the physiological landscape of the brain, generally promoting memory consolidation and impairing memory retrieval. Further, stress during memory consolidation may selectively promote specific elements of memory, e.g. emotional memory at the cost of other elements of memory, such as neutral memory. Memory retrieval is dependent on memory relevant regions of the brain, and should therefore be affected by the impact of stress, and stress related neuromodulators such as cortisol, on these same regions. The key hypothesis is that stress during retrieval will impair memory encoded in a survival context, although to a lesser degree than a control condition. To examine stress effects on the retrieval of survival encoded memory, a within subjects design was used to test participants encoding wordlists in a moving or survival context, followed by a 24 hour delay with a stressor or control condition placed immediately before memory retrieval. If stress impairs survival memory retrieval to a lesser degree relative to non-survival memory, it would suggest that survival information is accessible when it is needed most, in stressful or dangerous situations. The survival encoding advantage was replicated for recognition memory over the 24-hour delay, but not recall. In addition, the stressor elevated cortisol, but stress did not, in general, impair memory. Within source memory, stress increased survival memory, as well as incorrectly identifying moving encoded words as survival words. These findings suggest that stress effects on retrieval of survival relevant memory may be more subtle, altering response biases so that in stressful situations, contextual information is more available for survival relevant stimuli.

History

Date Created

2017-07-17

Date Modified

2018-11-01

Defense Date

2017-06-30

Research Director(s)

Jessica Payne

Degree

  • Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Level

  • Doctoral Dissertation

Language

  • English

Program Name

  • Psychology

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