Original articleEffects of Cortisol Suppression on Sleep-Associated Consolidation of Neutral and Emotional Memory
Section snippets
Subjects
Sixteen healthy male students (mean age 24.8 years; mean body mass index 24.4 kg/m2) with regular sleep–wake rhythms were recruited at the University of Lübeck to participate in the experiments. They were nonsmokers, did not take any medication, and had no history of psychiatric or neurological disorders, sleep or memory disturbances, endocrine dysfunction, or drug abuse. Subjects were acclimated to the experimental sleep condition by spending an adaptation night in the sleep laboratory. On
Hormones and Sleep
Cortisol concentrations were comparable between conditions at learning but were strongly suppressed overnight after administration of metyrapone (Figure 1). The suppression was already effective during early sleep (p < .01) and reached its maximal extent during late sleep, when the normal nocturnal rise in cortisol, as observable in the placebo condition, was actually prevented [1.3 ± .2 vs. 12.5 ± .7 μg/dL, t(13) = −16.85, p < .0001]. In the morning hours after awakening, cortisol gradually
Discussion
This study investigated in healthy humans effects of overnight suppression of cortisol by metyrapone on sleep-related consolidation of emotional and neutral declarative memory, using text materials. The primary finding is that metyrapone reduced consolidation of the neutral texts but left consolidation of emotional texts intact. To dissect the amygdala-dependent emotional contribution from hippocampal function in memorizing the emotional texts, we determined in a supplementary analysis the
References (91)
- et al.
Corticosteroids and cognition
J Psychiatr Res
(2001) - et al.
Enhanced memory for emotional material following stress-level cortisol treatment in humans
Psychoneuroendocrinology
(2001) - et al.
Mechanisms of emotional arousal and lasting declarative memory
Trends Neurosci
(1998) - et al.
Stress and cognitionare corticosteroids good or bad guys?
Trends Neurosci
(1999) - et al.
Are the neural substrates of memory the final common pathway in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)?
J Affect Disord
(2002) - et al.
An investigation of slow-wave sleep processes in chronic PTSD patients
J Anxiety Disord
(1994) - et al.
Memory for trauma-related information in Holocaust survivors with PTSD
Psychiatry Res
(2003) Cognitive and neural mechanisms of emotional memory
Trends Cogn Sci
(2001)- et al.
Corticotropin-releasing factor and neuropeptide YRole in emotional integration
Trends Neurosci
(1994) - et al.
Glucocorticoid feedback sensitivity and adrenocortical responsiveness in posttraumatic stress disorder
Biol Psychiatry
(2001)