Acute Psychological Stress Reduces Working Memory-Related Activity in the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex
Acute Psychological Stress Reduces Working Memory-Related Activity in the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex
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DOI：
10.1016/j.biopsych.2009.03.006
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发表时间：
2009-07-01
影响因子：
10.6
通讯作者：
Fernandez, Guillen
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Qin, Shaozheng;Hermans, Erno J.;Fernandez, Guillen
研究背景：急性心理应激会损害工作记忆等高级认知功能。类似的损伤在各种精神疾病中也可以看到，这些精神疾病与对压力的更高易感性和前额叶皮质功能障碍有关，这表明急性压力可能在这些功能障碍中发挥潜在作用。然而，它仍然是未知的急性压力是否有立即影响WM相关的前额叶activity.Methods：使用功能磁共振成像（fMRI），我们调查了27名健康女性参与者在一个封闭的WM任务（数字N-回）的神经活动，而中度的心理压力引起观看强烈厌恶（与中性）的电影材料连同自我参考指令。为了评估压力操作，自主神经和内分泌，以及主观，测量获得整个experiment.Results：成功诱导急性应激导致背外侧前额叶皮层（DLPFC）的WM相关活动显着减少，并伴随着较少的失活在大脑区域，共同称为默认模式网络。这项研究表明，实验诱导的急性应激在健康志愿者的结果减少WM相关的DLPFC活动和重新分配的神经资源远离执行功能网络。这些影响可能是由于超最佳水平的儿茶酚胺可能与皮质醇水平升高。一个类似的机制，涉及急性应激作为一个中介因素可能发挥重要作用，在高阶认知缺陷和hypofrontality观察各种精神疾病。
Background: Acute psychological stress impairs higher-order cognitive function such as working memory (WM). Similar impairments are seen in various psychiatric disorders that are associated with higher susceptibility to stress and with prefrontal cortical dysfunctions, suggesting that acute stress may play a potential role in such dysfunctions. However, it remains unknown whether acute stress has immediate effects on WM-related prefrontal activity.Methods: Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we investigated neural activity of 27 healthy female participants during a blocked WM task (numerical N-back) while moderate psychological stress was induced by viewing strongly aversive (vs. neutral) movie material together with a self-referencing instruction. To assess stress manipulation, autonomic and endocrine, as well as subjective, measurements were acquired throughout the experiment.Results: Successfully induced acute stress resulted in significantly reduced WM-related activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), and was accompanied by less deactivation in brain regions that are jointly referred to as the default mode network.Conclusions: This study demonstrates that experimentally induced acute stress in healthy volunteers results in a reduction of WM-related DLPFC activity and reallocation of neural resources away from executive function networks. These effects may be explained by supraoptimal levels of catecholamines potentially in conjunction with elevated levels of cortisol. A similar mechanism involving acute stress as a mediating factor may play an important role in higher-order cognitive deficits and hypofrontality observed in various psychiatric disorders.