High cortisol awakening response is associated with impaired error monitoring and decreased post-error adjustment

Abstract

The cortisol awakening response (CAR), a rapid increase in cortisol levels following morning awakening, is an important aspect of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis activity. Alterations in the CAR have been linked to a variety of mental disorders and cognitive function. However, little is known regarding the relationship between the CAR and error processing, a phenomenon that is vital for cognitive control and behavioral adaptation. Using high-temporal resolution measures of event-related potentials (ERPs) combined with behavioral assessment of error processing, we investigated whether and how the CAR is associated with two key components of error processing: error detection and subsequent behavioral adjustment. Sixty university students performed a Go/No-go task while their ERPs were recorded. Saliva samples were collected at 0, 15, 30 and 60 min after awakening on the two consecutive days following ERP data collection. The results showed that a higher CAR was associated with slowed latency of the error-related negativity (ERN) and a higher post-error miss rate. The CAR was not associated with other behavioral measures such as the false alarm rate and the post-correct miss rate. These findings suggest that high CAR is a biological factor linked to impairments of multiple steps of error processing in healthy populations, specifically, the automatic detection of error and post-error behavioral adjustment. A common underlying neural mechanism of physiological and cognitive control may be crucial for engaging in both CAR and error processing.

The cortisol awakening response predicts response inhibition in the afternoon of the same day

“…One of the most common measures to investigate response inhibition is the classical Go/NoGo task. The procedures followed the protocol of previous studies performed in our laboratory (Ma et al, 2015;Wu et al, 2017;Zhang et al, 2015). The only difference in the current study is that we did not use O/X but the digit 1/9 as the stimulus.…”

Elevated cortisol awakening response associated with early life stress and impaired executive function in healthy adult males

“…Previous research suggests that witnessing or being a victim of violence during adolescence may be linked to poor development of future orientation (Monahan et al, 2015) and this research is particularly relevant in light of the physical abuse/violence and CAR association finding in the current study. Previous research has also found a similar negative association between CAR and error monitoring (Zhang et al, 2015). Error monitoring, an important aspect of adaptive cognition, allows for behavioural adjustments that prevent future mistakes in goal-directed action via the implementation of cognitive control (Alexander and Brown, 2010).…”

“…Arnsten, 2009;Brown et al, 2005;Izquierdo et al, 2006). However, findings from studies examining the relationship between the CAR and EF have been inconsistent with some studies showing positive associations (working memory: Almela et al, 2012;attention switching: Evans et al, 2012;Law et al, 2015), some showing negative associations (error monitoring: Zhang et al, 2015), some showing no association (working memory, attention switching and cognitive inhibition: Franz et al, 2011;working memory: Ennis et al, 2016;Hidalgo et al, 2016) or a more complex U-shaped relationship (working memory: Moriarty et al, 2014).…”

Greater Heart Rate Responses to Acute Stress Are Associated with Better Post-Error Adjustment in Special Police Cadets

“…On the one hand, previous studies found that task parameters, such as the response-stimulus interval [ 35 ] and task instructions [ 36 ], affect the presence and magnitude of PES. For example, PES is reduced when task instructions emphasize response speed [ 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 ]. In the present study, the instructions for the Go/No-go task also emphasized speed, which may have led to the diminished PES effect at the group level.…”