Why the study?
The immediate effects of acute stress on inhibitory control and the underlying neural mechanisms remain unclear.
Does acute stress induced by Trier Social Stress Test improve inhibitory control and alter neural connectivity?
Does acute stress induced by Trier Social Stress Test improve inhibitory control and alter neural connectivity?
Acute stress enhances inhibitory control through increased connectivity between the superior/middle frontal gyrus and the striatum.
Hypothesis-generating for acute stress effects on inhibition; larger trials needed to confirm mechanisms and relevance.
Life stress has been shown to impact cognitive functions, including inhibitory control. However, the immediate effects of acute stress on inhibitory control and the underlying neural mechanisms remain unclear. In a behavioral pilot study (N = 30) and a within-subject functional magnetic resonance imaging study (N = 30), we examined how acute stress induced by Trier Social Stress Test influenced inhibitory control in a stop signal task. Behavioral results across two studies showed that stress consistently improved inhibitory control. Shorter stop signal reaction time (SSRT) in stress as compared with control condition was associated with stronger connectivity between the superior/middle frontal gyrus (SFG/MFG) and striatum. Dynamic causal modeling revealed distinct best models under stress and control condition, with an enhanced interaction between the SFG/MFG and the striatum after stress exposure. This research identified the SFG/MFG-striatum network as a key circuit underlying acute stress-elicited enhancement of inhibitory control in a stop signal task.
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Chang et al. (2019) studied this question.
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