Acute exposure to stress improves performance in trace eyeblink conditioning and spatial learning tasks in healthy men

Abstract

The present study investigated the effects of acute stress exposure on learning performance in humans using analogs of two paradigms frequently used in animals. Healthy male participants were exposed to the cold pressor test (CPT) procedure, i.e., insertion of the dominant hand into ice water for 60 sec. Following the CPT or the control procedure, participants completed a trace eyeblink conditioning task followed by a virtual navigation Morris water task (VNMWT). Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis and sympathetic autonomic system (SAS) activity were assessed by measuring salivary cortisol, heart rate, and skin conductance at selected timepoints. Results revealed positive effects of stress on performance in both tasks. The stress group showed significantly more conditioned blinks than the control group during acquisition of trace eyeblink conditioning. The stress group also performed significantly better in the VNMWT than the control group, with the former showing significantly fewer failures to locate the hidden platform in the allotted time and smaller heading errors than the latter. Regression analyses revealed positive relationships between HPA axis and SAS activity during stress and eyeblink conditioning performance. Our results directly extend findings from animal studies and suggest potential physiological mechanisms underlying stress and learning.

Human Hippocampal and Parahippocampal Theta during Goal-Directed Spatial Navigation Predicts Performance on a Virtual Morris Water Maze

“…Optimal navigation to the hidden platform from different starting locations requires formation of a cognitive map from distal visual cues on the surrounding walls (Jacobs et al, 1998a,b); learning can be readily inferred by quantifying performance in terms of path length or latency to reach the platform across trials. Studies with this virtual task have established gender-, age-, and stress-related performance changes in healthy participants (Astur et al, 1998;Driscoll et al, 2003;Duncko et al, 2007). Driscoll et al (2003) further reported that hippocampal volume was correlated with performance in an aging population, and Astur et al (2002) demonstrated resection of either left or right hippocampus was accompanied by significant performance deficits, suggesting vMWM performance is hippocampal dependent.…”

Acute Stress Potentiates Anxiety in Humans

“…Stress facilitates fear conditioning (9) and eyeblink conditioning (10) in humans, like is does in animals (11;12), but this facilitation is mediated by a stress-induced effect on associative learning mechanisms (9;13) rather than on fear/ anxiety. Given the relevance of stress-sensitization of anxiety to psychopathology, our main objective was to examine whether stress increases unconditioned fear in humans.…”

Research in Neuroscience and Virtual Reality

“…Study of human navigation with highly immersive virtual environments (Warren et al, 2001;Kearns et al, 2002;Foo et al, 2004;Foo et al, 2005;Waller et al, 2007;Richardson & Waller, 2007) Virtual versions of classical neuroscience tests to study navigation and spatial memory (Astur et al, 1998;Jacobs et al, 1997;Jacobs et al, 1998 ;Driscoll et al, 2003;Astur et al, 2004;Astur et al, 2005;Duncko et al, 2007;Cornwell et al, 2008) Animal navigation (Astur et al, 2003;Hölscher et al, 2005;Harvey et al, 2009) Virtual reality for neuroscience Human social interaction (Bailenson et al, 2001;Schilbach et al, 2006;Slater et al, 2006) Presence researchElectroencephalogram (Schlögl et al, 2002;Baumgartner et al, 2006;Kober, 2010) Presence researchfunctional magnetic resonance (Hoffman et al, 2003;Baumgartner et al, 2008;Jäncke et al, 2009) Presence researchTranscranial Doppler (Alcañiz et al, 2009;Rey et al, 2010) Neuroscience for virtual reality…”

“…Performance can be established using objective values that can be calculated, such as the path length or the required time to reach the platform. Different studies with a virtual version of the Morris water task have been developed and have shown the feasibility of applying it in human research (Astur et al, 1998;Jacobs et al, 1997;Jacobs et al, 1998;Driscoll et al, 2003;Duncko et al, 2007). These studies have shown that it is possible to apply a computerized Morris water task in human research.…”