Low-to-moderate level of perceived stress strengthens working memory: Testing the hormesis hypothesis through neural activation

Oshri, Assaf; Cui, Zehua; Carvalho, Cory; Sweet, Lawrence H.

doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2022.108354

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 89 publications

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“…While stress is perceived as a negative event, increasingly nuanced investigations of perceived stress and performance suggest a u-shaped association, with low-moderate levels of stress enhancing cognitive and physical performance, and high levels of stress, or no stress, diminishing performance. This emerging theory of stress, initially described by Rutter (2012) as a steeling effect, and more recently expressed as hormesis, a concept borrowed from the field of toxicology (Oshri et al, 2022; Oshri, 2022), is providing a more contextualized understanding of the interactions between individuals and their environments, suggesting that even external stressors can benefit human development when delivered in manageable amounts.…”

Section: The Problem For Researchers When Resilience Depends On Multi...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Multisystemic approaches to researching young people’s resilience: Discovering culturally and contextually sensitive accounts of thriving under adversity

2023

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As our understanding of the process of resilience has become more culturally and contextually grounded, researchers have had to seek innovative ways to account for the complex, reciprocal relationship between the many systems that influence young people’s capacity to thrive. This paper briefly traces the history of a more contextualized understanding of resilience and then reviews a social–ecological model to explain multisystemic resilience. A case study is then used to show how a multisystemic understanding of resilience can influence the design and implementation of resilience research. The Resilient Youth in Stressed Environments study is a longitudinal mixed methods investigation of adolescents and emerging adults in communities that depend on oil and gas industries in Canada and South Africa. These communities routinely experience stress at individual, family, and institutional levels from macroeconomic factors related to boom-and-bust economic cycles. Building on the project’s methods and findings, we discuss how to create better studies of resilience which are able to capture both emic and etic accounts of positive developmental processes in ways that avoid the tendency to homogenize children’s experience. Limitations to doing multisystemic resilience research are also highlighted, with special attention to the need for further innovation.

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Section: The Problem For Researchers When Resilience Depends On Multi...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Multisystemic approaches to researching young people’s resilience: Discovering culturally and contextually sensitive accounts of thriving under adversity

2023

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“…The environmental pressure here is different from time pressure. Moderate pressure promotes cognition [41,42], while the relaxed environment online may conversely lead individuals to make relatively simple intuitive errors. Therefore, we hypothesize that the CRT performance may differ between online and offline experiments.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does the Cognitive Reflection Test Work with Chinese College Students? Evidence from a Time-Limited Study

Li,

Yan,

Liu

et al. 2024

Behavioral Sciences

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The cognitive reflection test (CRT) is an experiment task commonly used in Western countries to test intuitive and analytical thinking styles. However, the validity of this task for Chinese participants has not been explored. Therefore, this study recruited Chinese college students to finish CRT tasks with various experimental designs. To gauge the accuracy of the CRT tasks, 438 Chinese college students first completed online questionnaires. Participants were then invited to participate in an offline laboratory with the same experimental settings. Finally, time pressure was used to strictly control intuition and analytical thinking to explore the performance of Chinese college students on CRT tasks. The results show that of the three experiments, Chinese college students had the highest accuracy in the offline test, and the CRT’s intuitive conflict problem still applies to Chinese students under the time-limited condition. This study demonstrates the validity of the CRT in China and proves that time pressure is an effective method for identifying individuals with strong logic ability.

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“…Moderate level of anxiety is actually the result of human evolution. It develops under certain conditions of stress and can help us increase alertness and avoid danger 10 , 11 . Several hypothalamic nuclei such as the suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN), the ventro-lateral preoptic nucleus (VLPO) and locus coeruleus (LC), as well as other brain nuclei, including the dorsal raphe (DR) and central amygdala (CeA), are involved in the effects of light on alertness 3 , 4 , 12 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Moderate white light exposure enhanced spatial memory retrieval by activating a central amygdala-involved circuit in mice

Shang

Shen

et al. 2023

Commun Biol

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Light exposure can profoundly affect neurological functions and behaviors. Here, we show that short-term exposure to moderate (400 lux) white light during Y-maze test promoted spatial memory retrieval and induced only mild anxiety in mice. This beneficial effect involves the activation of a circuit including neurons in the central amygdala (CeA), locus coeruleus (LC), and dentate gyrus (DG). Specifically, moderate light activated corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) positive (+) CeA neurons and induced the release of corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) from their axon terminals ending in the LC. CRF then activated tyrosine hydroxylase-expressing LC neurons, which send projections to DG and release norepinephrine (NE). NE activated β-adrenergic receptors on CaMKIIα-expressing DG neurons, ultimately promoting spatial memory retrieval. Our study thus demonstrated a specific light scheme that can promote spatial memory without excessive stress, and unraveled the underlying CeA-LC-DG circuit and associated neurochemical mechanisms.

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Low-to-moderate level of perceived stress strengthens working memory: Testing the hormesis hypothesis through neural activation

Cited by 8 publications

References 89 publications

Multisystemic approaches to researching young people’s resilience: Discovering culturally and contextually sensitive accounts of thriving under adversity

Multisystemic approaches to researching young people’s resilience: Discovering culturally and contextually sensitive accounts of thriving under adversity

Does the Cognitive Reflection Test Work with Chinese College Students? Evidence from a Time-Limited Study

Moderate white light exposure enhanced spatial memory retrieval by activating a central amygdala-involved circuit in mice

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