Imaging the Effects of Psychosocial Stress on Cognitive Performance

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Stress and evaluations of performance are commonplace in domains such as education, yetsurprisingly little research in humans has investigated the effects of stress on cognition. Althoughacademic success is often attributed to innate ability, how individuals respond to situational factors, suchas stress, may have an even greater influence on cognitive performance. Thus, it is particularly importantto investigate how stress influences the neural processes supporting cognitive performance. Researchsuggests that too much stress may cause an increase in distraction and an accompanying shift away fromengagement of the brain's cognitive control network (CCN), which guides attention outwardly toward thetask, toward greater engagement of the default mode network (DMN), which guides attention inwardly. Ascognitive control is often required to maintain high performance, especially on difficult tasks, this shift mayresult in a decrease in task performance. The project will investigate how stress affects levels of the stresshormone cortisol as well as brain activity in the CCN and DMN during the performance of a difficult taskrequiring cognitive control. The research is important because it may identify neural mechanisms by whichstress may prevent students from performing to their potential. This information may aid in effectivelydeveloping approaches to minimize the negative impact of stress on cognitive performance. Additionally,the proposed research will broaden the participation of underrepresented groups in scientific research, asRutgers-Newark is consistently rated as having the most diverse undergraduate population in the nation.Furthermore, through an established program at Rutgers-Newark, local high school students fromunderrepresented minority groups will assist with the proposed research.The project combines physiological measurements of the stress hormone cortisol with functionalmagnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate how psychosocial stress influences cognitive controlprocesses and task performance. We aim to determine the effects of the Trier Social Stress Test, a knownpsychosocial stressor involving social-evaluative threat that reliably elevates cortisol release, on taskperformance and brain network engagement during a Go/No-Go task. This task is ideal because it requirescognitive control and sustained attention, and distraction leads to a suboptimal response. The projectcombines levels of analysis to provide links between the cognitive, physiological, and neural effects ofstress. By investigating the relationship between psychosocial stress and the engagement of DMN andCCN, this research will provide important insights into how factors other than intelligence, such as how apotentially stressful event is experienced, drive the brain processes that determine cognitive performanceand academic achievement.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.