Cortisol suppression impairs retrieval of emotional memory and changes its neural correlates immediately and four days post-treatment

Description

Despina Antypa, Patrik Vuilleumier, and Ulrike Rimmele suppressed the morning cortisol rise with a drug. They did so in a double-blind, placebo-controlled brain imaging study. The aim was to test how the stress hormone shapes recall of emotional memories. Volunteers recalled charged material right after suppression and again four days later.

Blocking cortisol hurt recall on the spot and broke up the shared work of the brain regions that normally serve emotional recall. The change was not brief: brain patterns of those memories, measured days later under a normal hormone state, stayed altered. The authors read that lasting mark as proof that one recall under suppressed cortisol can rewrite how a memory is stored. They suggest the process deserves study as a possible route to easing painful memories in care.

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Source: https://europepmc.org/article/MED/PMC13598141