The relation of salivary cortisol to patterns of performance on a word list learning task in healthy older adults

Endogenous Cortisol Exposure and Declarative Verbal Memory

“…Persistently elevated cortisol was associated with a pattern of learning characteristic of dysfunctional memory: attenuated primacy (14–16, 29). Attenuated primacy was observed during the learning trials, suggesting cortisol relationships with long-term memory rather than short-term memory.…”

“…Better recall of words in the first part of the list comprises a primacy effect, which is attributed to more rehearsals and long-term memory encoding; better recall of words in the latter part of the list comprises a recency effect, which is attributed to occupation of short-term memory (14–15). It has been suggested that exposure to endogenous cortisol is associated with attenuated primacy, a reduced ability to recall items from the beginning of a word list (16). Attenuated primacy is associated with dysfunctional memory and brain pathologies (14; 17–18) but is not characteristic of normal aging (14).…”

The relation of hydration status to declarative memory and working memory in older adults

“…Participants in the present study were 21 postmenopausal women ages 50 to 78 (mean 60.3, SD 8.03) who participated in a larger study of stress and cognition (23). Participants were eligible for the study if they reported no immune or endocrinerelevant health conditions (e.g., diabetes, cancer within the previous 5 years, recent surgeries, cardiovascular disease), were non-smokers, did not drink more than 7 alcohol drinks per week, did not exercise more than 10 hours per week on average, had a body mass index<30, were not using psychotropic medication or blood pressure medication, and had hydration data available.…”

The diurnal cortisol cycle and cognitive performance in the healthy old

“…Although many of these studies have investigated the effects of acute bursts of glucocorticoids (e.g. Buchanan and Tranel, 2008), chronically higher basal levels of cortisol have been observed in Alzheimer's Disease as well as milder conditions of cognitive impairment (Arsenault-Lapierre et al, 2010), and one particular memory deficit (reduced 'primacy effect' following the learning of word lists), is both characteristic of Alzheimer's patients and has been associated with higher cortisol levels in a non-clinical older population (Suhr et al, 2008). In a large sample of community residents, Lee et al (2007) found high cortisol levels to be associated with poorer performance across a wide range of cognitive domains.…”