Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis reactivity to psychological stress and memory in middle-aged XXXX : high responders exhibit enhanced declarative memory performance.

@entity1 @entity2414 @entity701
According to recent studies, elevated @entity701 levels are associated with @entity2414 performance. This specific effect of @entity701 has been shown in several studies using pharmacological doses of @entity701 . The present study was designed to determine the effects of endogenously stimulated @entity701 secretion on memory performance in healthy middle-aged @entity1 . For psychological stress challenging, we employed the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST). Subjects were assigned to either the TSST or a non-stressful control condition. Declarative and non-declarative memory performance was measured by a combined priming-free-recall-task. No significant group differences were found for memory performance. Post hoc analyses of variance indicated that regardless of experimental condition the subjects with remarkably high @entity701 increase in response to the experimental procedure (high responders) showed increased memory performance in the declarative task compared to subjects with low @entity701 response (low responders). The results suggest that stress-induced @entity701 failed to impair memory performance. The results are discussed with respect to gender-specific effects and modulatory effects of the sympathetic nervous system and psychological variables.
