Selective attention to emotional cues and emotion recognition in healthy subjects: the role of mineralocorticoid receptor stimulation

The emerging role of rapid corticosteroid actions on excitatory and inhibitory synaptic signaling in the brain

Over the past two decades, there has been increasing evidence for the importance of rapid-onset actions of corticosteroid hormones in the brain. Here, we highlight the distinct rapid corticosteroid actions that regulate excitatory and inhibitory synaptic transmission in the hypothalamus, the hippocampus, basolateral amygdala, and prefrontal cortex. The receptors that mediate rapid corticosteroid actions are located at or close to the plasma membrane, though many of the receptor characteristics remain unresolved. Rapid-onset corticosteroid effects play a role in fast neuroendocrine feedback as well as in higher brain functions, including increased aggression and anxiety, and impaired memory retrieval. The rapid non-genomic corticosteroid actions precede and complement slow-onset, long-lasting transcriptional actions of the steroids. Both rapid and slow corticosteroid actions appear to be indispensable to adapt to a continuously changing environment, and their imbalance can increase an individual's susceptibility to psychopathology.

Emotion recognition and regulation in males: Role of sex and stress steroids

Understanding emotions in males is crucial given their higher susceptibility to substance use, interpersonal violence, and suicide compared to females. Steroid hormones are assumed to be critical biological factors that affect and modulate emotion-related behaviors, together with psychological and social factors. This review explores whether males' abilities to recognize emotions of others and regulate their own emotions are associated with testosterone, cortisol, and their interaction. Higher levels of testosterone were associated with improved recognition and heightened sensitivity to threatening faces. In contrast, higher cortisol levels positively impacted emotion regulation ability. Indirect evidence from neuroimaging research suggested a link between higher testosterone levels and difficulties in cognitive emotion regulation. However, this notion must be investigated in future studies using different emotion regulation strategies and considering social status. The present review contributes to the understanding of how testosterone and cortisol affect psychological well-being and emotional behavior in males.

The effects of yohimbine and hydrocortisone on selective attention to fearful faces: An fMRI study

INTRODUCTION

Selective attention to salient emotional information can enable an advantage in the face of danger. The present study aims to investigate the influence of the stress neuromodulators, norepinephrine and cortisol, on selective attention processes to fearful faces and its neuronal activation.

METHODS AND MATERIALS

We used a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled design. 167 healthy men between 18 and 35 years (mean [SD] age: 25.23 [4.24] years) participated in the study. Participants received either: (A) yohimbine (n= 41), (B) hydrocortisone (n = 41), (C) yohimbine and hydrocortisone (n = 42) or (D) placebo only (n= 43) and participated in a dot-probe task with fearful and neutral faces in an fMRI scanner.

RESULTS

We found an attentional bias toward fearful faces across all groups and related neuronal activation in the left cuneus. We did not find any differences between experimental treatment groups in selective attention and its neuronal activation.

DISCUSSION

Our results provide evidence that fearful faces lead to an attentional bias with related neuronal activation in the left cuneus. We did not replicate formerly reported activation in the amygdala, intraparietal sulcus, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, and thalamus. Suitability of the dot-probe task for fMRI studies and insignificant treatment effects are discussed.

The Hypothalamus-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis and Social Cognition in Borderline Personality Disorder

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterized by emotional instability, impulsivity and unstable interpersonal relationships. Patients experience discomforting levels of distress, inducing symptoms like dissociation, aggression or withdrawal. Social situations are particularly challenging, and acute social stress can reduce patients' cognitive and social functioning. In patients with Major Depressive Disorder or Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, which show high comorbidity with BPD, the endocrine stress response is characterized by Hypothalamus-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) axis dysfunction, which affects cognitive functioning. Compared to these clinical groups, research on HPA-axis function in BPD is relatively scarce, but evidence points towards a blunted cortisol reactivity to acute stress. Since BPD patients are particularly prone to social stress and experience high subjective difficulties in these situations, it seems plausible that HPA-axis dysregulation might contribute to decreased social cognition in BPD. The present review summarizes findings on the HPA-axis function in BPD and its association with social cognition following acute social stress. For this purpose, we review literature that employed a widely used social stressor (Trier Social Stress Test, TSST) to study the effects of acute social stress on social cognition and the HPA-axis response. We contrast these findings with studies on social cognition that employed Cyberball, another widely used social stressor that lacks HPA-axis involvement. We conclude that research on social cognition in BPD reveals heterogeneous results with no clear relationship between social functioning and HPA-axis response. More research is needed to better understand the psychophysiological underpinnings of impaired social cognition in BPD.

The association between acute stress & empathy: A systematic literature review

Empathy is a fundamental component of our social-emotional experience. Over the last decade, there has been increased interest in understanding the effects of acute stress on empathy. We provide a first comprehensive-and systematic-overview identifying emerging patterns and gaps in this literature. Regarding affective empathy, there is abundant evidence for stress contagion-the 'spillover' of stress from a stressed target to an unstressed perceiver. We highlight contextual factors that can facilitate and/or undermine these effects. Fewer studies have investigated the effects of acute stress on affective empathy, revealing a nuanced picture, some evidence suggests acute stress can block contagion of other's emotions; but again contextual differences need to be considered. Regarding cognitive empathy, most studies find no conclusive effects for simplistic measures of emotion recognition; however, studies using more complex empathy tasks find that acute stress might affect cognitive empathy differentially for men and women. This review provides an important first step towards understanding how acute stress can impact social-togetherness, and aims to aid future research by highlighting (in)congruencies and outstanding questions.

Stress and Stress-Induced Glucocorticoids Facilitate Empathic Accuracy in Men but Have No Effects for Women

Empathy, the ability to understand the feelings of other people, is critical for navigating our social world and maintaining social connections. Given that acute stress, and resulting increased glucocorticoids, triggers a shift in two large-scale brain networks, prioritizing salience over executive control, we predicted that acute psychosocial stress would facilitate empathic accuracy. We also investigated the moderating role of gender, given that men typically show a more robust glucocorticoid response to acute stress than women. As predicted, results from two independent experiments ( N = 267 college-age participants; 2,256 observations) showed that acute psychosocial stress facilitated empathic accuracy for men, an effect related to their glucocorticoid response in the stress condition. Conversely, psychosocial stress had no effect on empathic accuracy for women, who also showed a smaller cortisol response to stress than men. Exploratory analyses further revealed that women taking oral contraceptives performed worse on the empathic-accuracy task than regularly cycling women. This research highlights the important, but complex, role of stress in cognitive empathy.

Activation of the default network during a theory of mind task predicts individual differences in agreeableness and social cognitive ability

Social cognitive processes, such as emotion perception and empathy, allow humans to navigate complex social landscapes and are associated with specific neural systems. In particular, theory of mind (ToM), which refers to our ability to decipher the mental states of others, is related to the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex and temporoparietal junction, which include portions of the default network. Both social cognition and the default network have been linked to the personality trait Agreeableness. We hypothesized that default network activity during a ToM task would positively predict social cognitive abilities and Agreeableness. In a 3T fMRI scanner, participants (N = 1050) completed a ToM task in which they observed triangles displaying random or social (i.e., human-like) movement. Participants also completed self-report measures of Agreeableness and tests of intelligence and social cognitive ability. In each participant, average blood oxygen level dependent responses were calculated for default network regions associated with social cognition, and structural equation modeling was used to test associations of personality and task performance with activation in those brain regions. Default network activation in the dorsal medial subsystem was greater for social versus random animations. Default network activation in response to social animations predicted better performance on social cognition tasks and, to a lesser degree, higher Agreeableness. Neural response to social stimuli in the default network may be associated with effective social processing and could have downstream effects on social interactions. We discuss theoretical and methodological implications of this work for social and personality neuroscience.

Effects of glucocorticoid and noradrenergic activity on implicit and explicit facial emotion recognition in healthy young men

The ability to recognize emotions from facial expressions is crucial for social interaction. Only few studies have examined the effect of stress hormones on facial emotion recognition, although stressful events affect social interactions on a daily basis. Those studies that examined facial emotion recognition mostly used explicit prompts to trigger consciously controlled processing. However, facial emotions are processed mainly implicitly in real life. Therefore, we investigated separate and combined effects of noradrenergic and glucocorticoid stimulation on implicit and explicit facial emotion recognition. One hundred and four healthy men (mean age = 24.1 years ±SD 3.5) underwent the Face Puzzle task to test implicit and explicit facial emotion recognition after receiving either 10 mg hydrocortisone or 10 mg yohimbine (an alpha 2-adrenergic receptor antagonist that increases noradrenergic activity) or 10 mg hydrocortisone/10 mg yohimbine combined or placebo. Salivary cortisol and salivary alpha amylase (sAA) were measured during the experiment. Compared to the placebo condition hydrocortisone significantly increased salivary cortisol and yohimbine significantly increased sAA. Participants were better and faster in explicit than in implicit facial emotion recognition. However, there was no effect of separate and combined noradrenergic and glucocorticoid stimulation on implicit and explicit facial emotion recognition performance compared to placebo. Our results do not support an essential role of the glucocorticoid and noradrenergic system in FER in young healthy men.

Selective attention to emotional stimuli and emotion recognition in patients with major depression: The role of mineralocorticoid and glutamatergic NMDA receptors

BACKGROUND

Mineralocorticoid receptors (MR) are highly expressed in limbic brain areas and prefrontal cortex, which are closely related to selective attention to emotional stimuli and emotion recognition. Patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) show alterations in MR functioning and both cognitive processes. MR stimulation improves cognitive processes in MDD and leads to glutamate release that binds upon N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors (NMDA-R).

AIMS

We examined (1) whether MR stimulation has beneficial effects on selective attention to emotional stimuli and on emotion recognition and (2) whether these advantageous effects can be improved by simultaneous NMDA-R stimulation.

METHODS

We examined 116 MDD patients and 116 healthy controls matched for age (M = 34 years), sex (78% women), and education in the following conditions: no pharmacological stimulation (placebo), MR stimulation (0.4 mg fludrocortisone + placebo), NMDA-R stimulation (placebo + 250 mg D-cycloserine (DCS)), MR + NMDA-R stimulation (fludrocortisone + DCS). An emotional dot probe task and a facial emotion recognition task were used to measure selective attention to emotional stimuli and emotion recognition.

RESULTS

Patients with MDD and healthy individuals did not differ in task performance. MR stimulation had no effect on both cognitive processes in both groups. Across groups, NMDA-R stimulation had no effect on selective attention but showed a small effect on emotion recognition by increasing accuracy to recognize angry faces.

CONCLUSIONS

Relatively young unmedicated MDD patients showed no depression-related cognitive deficits compared with healthy controls. Separate MR and simultaneous MR and NMDA-R stimulation revealed no advantageous effects on cognition, but NMDA-R might be involved in emotion recognition.

Identifying and validating emotion regulation latent profiles and their relationship with affective variables

OBJECTIVE

We investigated and validated the presence of emotion regulation profiles in an adult sample.

METHOD

In a cross-sectional study, 1165 individuals completed the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ), Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS), and Following Affective States Test (FAST). Sample was divided into three to establish and validate emotion regulation profiles using a latent profile analysis.

RESULTS

Sample 1 (n = 375) showed three different profiles: dysregulated, adapted, and unaware regulator. Sample 2 (n = 390) shows a consistent pattern with the same number of profiles that remained stable over time. In Sample 3 (n = 400), we validate and find that cognitive reappraisal and lack of awareness were essential to differentiating profiles.

CONCLUSIONS

Three emotional regulation profiles differ due to the levels of positive/negative affect and the propensity to avoid/follow emotions, increasing the understanding of how different regulatory strategies interact and explain different outcomes with mental health.

Effects of hydrocortisone and yohimbine on selective attention to emotional cues

INTRODUCTION

Facial expressions contain important affective information, and selective attention to facial expression provides an advantage in the face of loss, stress and danger. In addition, the sympathetic nervous system and hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis mediate the organism's response to loss and danger. Here, we aimed at investigating the influence of sympathetic nervous system and hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis activation on selective attention to affective facial stimuli.

METHODS AND MATERIALS

One hundred-and-four healthy men between 18-35 years old (mean (standard deviation) age: 24.1 (3.5) years) participated in the study. We used a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled design. Participants received either: (a) yohimbine, (b) hydrocortisone, (c) yohimbine and hydrocortisone or (d) placebo only and participated in a dot-probe task with sad, happy and neutral faces. We collected salivary samples to measure cortisol and alpha amylase activity in addition to measurements of blood pressure and heart rate. Salivary cortisol served as correlate of hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis activation and salivary alpha amylase activity, blood pressure and heart rate as correlates of sympathetic nervous system activation. Measurements were carried out before and after drug administration.

RESULTS

We did not find a main effect or interaction effect of hydrocortisone or yohimbine administration on selective attention to happy faces. However, we found an interaction of yohimbine and hydrocortisone on selective attention to sad faces. Post-hoc t-test revealed an attentional bias away from sad stimuli and towards neutral faces in the hydrocortisone-only group.

DISCUSSION

Only hydrocortisone administration led to an attentional bias away from sad faces. Future studies should investigate these effects in major depression disorder, as this disorder is characterised by glucocorticoid resistance and increased processing of sad stimuli.

Impaired Attentional Processing During Parabolic Flight

Previous studies suggest that altered gravity levels during parabolic flight maneuvers affect spatial updating. Little is known about the impact of the experimental setting and psychological stressors associated with parabolic flight experiments on attentional processes. To address this gap, we investigated the level of alertness, selective and sustained attention in 1 and 0 g using a Go/No-Go Continuous Performance Task. We also identified several parameters associated with the experimental set-up of a parabolic flight that could be expected to affect attentional processing. These included the use of scopolamine, sleep quality prior to the flight day, participant’s stress level as well as mood and anxiety state before and after the parabolic flight. We observed a deterioration in attentional processing prior to the first parabola that was further aggravated in weightlessness and returned to baseline after the last parabola. Reaction Time, Hit and False Alarm Rate were moderately correlated with self-reported anxiety state, but not cortisol levels or emotional states. The use of scopolamine had minor effects on Reaction Time. Our results confirm previous studies reporting impairments of cognitive performance in 0 g, and highlight important aspects that should be considered for the design of behavioral research experiments in future parabolic flight campaigns.

Effects of Open-Label Placebos on State Anxiety and Glucocorticoid Stress Responses

Stress belongs to the most frequent negative feelings people are confronted with in daily life. Strategies against acute stress include, e.g., relaxation techniques or medications, but it is also known that placebos can successfully reduce negative emotional stress. While it is widely held that placebos require deception to provoke a response, recent studies demonstrate intriguing evidence that placebos may work even without concealment (e.g., against anxiety or pain). Most of these studies are based on self-report questionnaires and do not include physiological measures. Here we report results of a study examining whether placebos without deception reduce acute stress. A total of 53 healthy individuals received either placebos without deception or no pills before participating in a laboratory stress test (Maastricht Acute Stress Test, MAST). We recorded self-report stress measures and cortisol responses before and after the MAST. Results showed no significant differences between the placebo and the control group, but when comparing participants with high relative to low beliefs in the power of placebos we found significant lower anxiety and cortisol responses for the placebo believers. These results show that non-deceptive placebos may successfully reduce acute anxiety and stress, but only in participants who had a strong belief in placebos. We discuss the results by suggesting that open-label placebos might be a possible treatment to reduce stress at least for some individuals.

Facial emotion recognition in borderline patients is unaffected by acute psychosocial stress

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is characterized by difficulties in social cognition and social interactions, which exacerbate under stress. A previous study found better facial emotion recognition (FER) in patients with personality disorders and healthy controls (HC) after stress. We recently reported that emotional empathy scores, i.e. the emotional response to another person's emotional state, were significantly lower in BPD patients than in HC after psychosocial stress. Cognitive empathy scores remained unaltered. The present study aims to further investigate the effect of psychosocial stress induced by the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) on FER as part of social cognition in patients with BPD. We randomized 43 women with BPD and 46 female HC to either the TSST or a placebo condition. Afterwards, participants were asked in an emotion recognition test to identify emotions in faces showing anger or sadness at low and high intensity. Both groups recognized emotions better at high intensity compared with low intensity. There was no effect of stress on FER performance and we found no difference between groups. This is in line with prior research on social cognition in BPD patients demonstrating that the ability to understand another person's perspective might be unaffected by acute stress.

The effects of acute stress and stress hormones on social cognition and behavior: Current state of research and future directions

Stress encompasses profound psychological and physiological changes that are observable on all levels, from cellular mechanisms, humoral changes, and brain activation to subjective experience and behavior. While the impact of stress on health has already been studied for decades, a more recent field of research has revealed effects of stress on human social cognition and behavior. Initial studies have attempted to elucidate the underlying biological mechanisms of these stress-induced effects by measuring physiological responses or by using pharmacological approaches. We provide an overview of the current state of research on the effects of acute stress induction or pharmacological manipulations of stress-related neuro circuitry on social cognition and behavior. Additionally, we discuss the methodological challenges that need to be addressed in order to gain further insight into this important research topic and facilitate replicability of results. Future directions may help to disentangle the complex interplay of psychological and biological stress variables and their effects on social cognition and behavior on health and in disorders with social deficits.

Cognitive and emotional empathy after stimulation of brain mineralocorticoid and NMDA receptors in patients with major depression and healthy controls

Mineralocorticoid receptors (MR) are predominantly expressed in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. Both brain areas are associated with social cognition, which includes cognitive empathy (ability to understand others' emotions) and emotional empathy (ability to empathize with another person). MR stimulation improves memory and executive functioning in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) and healthy controls, and leads to glutamate-mediated N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDA-R) signaling. We examined whether the beneficial effects of MR stimulation can be extended to social cognition (empathy), and whether DCS would have additional beneficial effects. In this double-blind placebo-controlled single-dose study, we randomized 116 unmedicated MDD patients (mean age 34 years, 78% women) and 116 age-, sex-, and education years-matched healthy controls to four conditions: MR stimulation (fludrocortisone (0.4 mg) + placebo), NMDA-R stimulation (placebo + D-cycloserine (250 mg)), MR and NMDA-R stimulation (both drugs), or placebo. Cognitive and emotional empathy were assessed by the Multifaceted Empathy Test. The study was registered on clinicaltrials.gov (NCT03062150). MR stimulation increased cognitive empathy across groups, whereas NMDA-R stimulation decreased cognitive empathy in MDD patients only. Independent of receptor stimulation, cognitive empathy did not differ between groups. Emotional empathy was not affected by MR or NMDA-R stimulation. However, MDD patients showed decreased emotional empathy compared with controls but, according to exploratory analyses, only for positive emotions. We conclude that MR stimulation has beneficial effects on cognitive empathy in MDD patients and healthy controls, whereas NMDA-R stimulation decreased cognitive empathy in MDD patients. It appears that MR rather than NMDA-R are potential treatment targets to modulate cognitive empathy in MDD.

Youths' processing of emotion information: Responses to chronic and video-based laboratory stress

Integrating multiple sources of information about others' emotional states is critical to making accurate emotional inferences. There is evidence that both acute and chronic stress influence how individuals perceive emotional information. However, there is little research examining how acute and chronic stress interact to impact these processes. The current study examined whether acute and chronic stress interact to influence how children make emotional inferences. Eighty-nine youths (aged 11-15 years) underwent a novel video-based social stressor. Children completed an emotion recognition task prior to and after the stressor in which they saw integrated displays of facial expressions and contexts depicting congruent or incongruent emotional information. Eye tracking assessed changes in attention to the stimuli. Children became more likely to use and attended more to facial information than contextual information when labeling emotions following exposure to acute stress. Moreover, the effect of acute stress on use of facial information to label emotions was stronger for children who experienced higher levels of chronic stress. These data suggest that acute stress shifts attention towards facial information while suppressing processing of other sources of emotional information, and that youths with a history of chronic stress are more susceptible to these effects.

Steroid hormone secretion after stimulation of mineralocorticoid and NMDA receptors and cardiovascular risk in patients with depression

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is associated with altered mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) and glucocorticoid receptor function, and disturbed glutamatergic signaling. Both systems are closely intertwined and likely contribute not only to the pathophysiology of MDD, but also to the increased cardiovascular risk in MDD patients. Less is known about other steroid hormones, such as aldosterone and DHEA-S, and how they affect the glutamatergic system and cardiovascular disease risk in MDD. We examined salivary cortisol, aldosterone, and DHEA-S secretion after stimulation of MR and glutamatergic NMDA receptors in 116 unmedicated depressed patients, and 116 age- and sex-matched healthy controls. Patients (mean age = 34.7 years, SD = ±13.3; 78% women) and controls were randomized to four conditions: (a) control condition (placebo), (b) MR stimulation (0.4 mg fludrocortisone), (c) NMDA stimulation (250 mg D-cycloserine (DCS)), and (d) combined MR/NMDA stimulation (fludrocortisone + DCS). We additionally determined the cardiovascular risk profile in both groups. DCS had no effect on steroid hormone secretion, while cortisol secretion decreased in both fludrocortisone conditions across groups. Independent of condition, MDD patients showed (1) increased cortisol, increased aldosterone, and decreased DHEA-S concentrations, and (2) increased glucose levels and decreased high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels compared with controls. Depressed patients show profound alterations in several steroid hormone systems that are associated both with MDD pathophysiology and increased cardiovascular risk. Prospective studies should examine whether modulating steroid hormone levels might reduce psychopathology and cardiovascular risk in depressed patients.

Acute Psychosocial Stress Modulates the Detection Sensitivity for Facial Emotions

Abstract. Psychosocial stress has been shown to alter social perception and behavior. In the present study, we investigated whether a standardized psychosocial stressor modulates the perceptual sensitivity for positive and negative facial emotions and the tendency to allocate attention to facial expressions. Fifty-four male participants underwent the Trier Social Stress Test for Groups (TSST-G) or a nonstressful control condition before they performed a facial emotions detection task and a facial dot-probe task to assess attention for positive and negative facial expressions. Saliva samples were collected over the course of the experiment to measure free cortisol and alpha amylase. In response to the TSST-G, participants showed marked increases in subjective stress, salivary cortisol, and alpha amylase compared to the control condition. In the control condition, detection performance was higher for angry compared to happy facial expressions, while in the stressful condition this difference was reversed. Here, participants were more sensitive to happy compared to angry facial expressions. Attention was unaffected by psychosocial stress. The results suggest that psychosocial stress shifts social perception in terms of detection sensitivity for facial expressions toward positive social cues, a pattern that is consistent with the tendency to seek social support for coping with stress.

Mineralocorticoid receptor function and cognition in health and disease

The steroid hormone cortisol is released in response to stress and exerts its effects in the brain via two different receptors: the mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) and the glucocorticoid receptor (GR). This review - dedicated to Dirk Hellhammer - focusses on the role of MR on cognitive and emotional function in healthy individuals and in stress-associated disorders such as major depressive disorder (MDD) or borderline personality disorder (BPD). Animal data and studies from healthy individuals converge such that MR play an important role in the appraisal of new situations and the following response selection. Decision-making and empathy are important determinants of this response selection and both are affected by MR function. Furthermore, MR are crucially involved in visuospatial navigation and memory in young and elderly healthy individuals whereas the exact physiological role of MR in verbal learning and verbal memory needs to be further characterized. In contrast to studies in healthy participants, age played a moderating role on the effects of MR stimulation on cognition in depressed patients. In young depressed patients, MR stimulation exerted beneficial effects on verbal memory and executive function, whereas in elderly depressed patients MR stimulation led to impaired verbal learning and visuospatial memory. Similar to healthy controls, BPD patients showed enhanced emotional empathy but not cognitive empathy after MR stimulation. Accordingly, this make MR an interesting target for potential pharmacological augmentation of psychotherapy in BPD. Given the important role MR play in cognitive and emotional function in health and disease, further studies should examine whether MR modulation can alleviate cognitive and emotional problems in patients with stress-associated disorders.

Acute stress enhances the sensitivity for facial emotions: a signal detection approach

Facial emotion recognition is an important prerequisite for social cognition. There is, however, limited evidence on how the ability to detect facial emotions is influenced by acute stress and the associated physiological reactions. In this study, two groups of healthy male participants were either exposed to a psychosocial stressor - an adaptation of the Trier Social Stress Test in virtual reality (n = 23) - or a non-stressful control task in the virtual environment (n = 20). Afterwards, both groups completed a computerized facial recognition task based on the signal detection theory presenting happy vs. angry faces with three different expression intensities. Saliva samples were taken at seven time points over the course of the experiment and used to analyze concentrations of free salivary cortisol and alpha amylase. Analyses using repeated-measures analyses of variance revealed a significant increase in emotion detection performance and significantly shorter response latencies in the stress group independent of emotional valence or emotion intensity. However, increased task performance in the stress group could not be predicted by stress-induced cortisol or alpha amylase secretion. The results suggest that enhanced detection of emotional cues after stress might be an adaptive response as an increased sensitivity to social cues might help individuals to detect potential threats or sources of social support in their social environment. Lay Summary Socially evaluative stress facilitates the subsequent recognition of emotions. After having performed a task in a virtual environment, two groups of participants were asked to detect emotion expressions on pictures of faces that were presented to them on a computer screen. Statistical comparison of groups indicates that the group that had previously been subjected to a stressful job interview showed better results and became faster in detecting displayed emotions than the control group that had previously performed a non-stressful task.

Influence of glucocorticoid and mineralocorticoid receptor stimulation on task switching

The influence of stress on executive functions has been demonstrated in numerous studies and is potentially mediated by the stress-induced cortisol release. Yet, the impact of cortisol on cognitive flexibility and task switching in particular remains equivocal. In this study, we investigated the influence of pharmacological glucocorticoid receptor (GR) and mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) stimulation, two corticosteroid receptor types known to be responsible for cortisol effects on the brain. We conducted two experiments, each with 80 healthy participants (40 women and 40 men), and tested the effect of the unspecific MR/GR agonist hydrocortisone (Experiment I) and the more specific MR agonist fludrocortisone (Experiment II) on switch costs and task rule congruency in a bivalent, cued task switching paradigm. The results did not confirm our hypotheses; we found no significant effects of our manipulations on task switching capacity, although general switching and congruency effects were observed. We discuss the absence of MR/GR-mediated effects and propose alternative mechanisms that could explain stress induced effects on task switching.

The Role of Stressful Parenting and Mineralocorticoid Receptor Haplotypes on Social Development During Adolescence and Young Adulthood

The development of social behavior could be affected by stressful parenting. The mineralocorticoid receptor, one of the two main receptors for the stress hormone cortisol, plays a vital role in adequate responses to stress. Therefore, the effects of stressful parenting on social development (i.e., empathic concern, perspective taking and prosocial behavior) may be moderated by functional genetic variation in mineralocorticoid receptor haplotypes (a combination of alleles). A group of 343 adolescents (44.3% females) was followed from the age of 13 until 24 years. Growth curve analyses showed lower levels of prosocial behaviors and a slower increase in empathic concern and perspective taking in adolescents who reported more stressful parenting. In contrast, relatively higher levels of prosocial behavior, empathic concern and perspective taking were present in combination with stress resilient mineralocorticoid receptor haplotypes. Despite sex differences in social development with earlier social development for girls, no consistent sex differences were found with regard to mineralocorticoid receptor haplotypes. The current study showed that genetic variation in mineralocorticoid receptor impacts the social development during adolescence and young adulthood.

Effects of mineralocorticoid-receptor stimulation on risk taking behavior in young healthy men and women

Risk taking is influenced by stress, with riskier decisions after exposure to an acute stressor and consecutively elevated cortisol levels. In the brain, cortisol acts on two receptors with different functional profiles: the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) and the mineralocorticoid receptor (MR). In the current study we investigated the effect of MR stimulation on risk taking behavior in 80 young healthy participants (40 women, mean age=23.9). We administered 0.4mg fludrocortisone, a MR agonist, in a between-subjects, placebo controlled design. Subsequently, participants conducted an established risk taking paradigm, the Balloon-Analogue-Risk-Task (BART). We also used two questionnaires to assess risk taking and decision behavior as trait measures. We found a treatment effect with riskier decisions in the fludrocortisone group. Furthermore, we found a sex effect with more risk taking in men. There was no statistically significant interaction between both factors. Our results indicate that acute MR stimulation leads to riskier decisions in women and men. Our findings argue for an important role of the MR in decision making processes.

Mineralocorticoid receptor stimulation effects on spatial memory in healthy young adults: A study using the virtual Morris Water Maze task

OBJECTIVES

Stress hormones such as cortisol are known to influence a wide range of cognitive functions, including hippocampal based spatial memory. In the brain, cortisol acts via two different receptors: the glucocorticoid (GR) and the mineralocorticoid receptor (MR). As the MR has a high density in the hippocampus, we examined the effects of pharmacological MR stimulation on spatial memory.

METHODS

Eighty healthy participants (40 women, 40 men, mean age=23.9years±SD=3.3) completed the virtual Morris Water Maze (vMWM) task to test spatial encoding and spatial memory retrieval after receiving 0.4mg fludrocortisone, a MR agonist, or placebo.

RESULTS

There was no effect of MR stimulation on spatial encoding during the vMWM task. However, participants who received fludrocortisone exhibited improved spatial memory retrieval performance. There was neither a main effect of sex nor a sex-by-treatment interaction.

CONCLUSION

In young healthy participants, MR stimulation improved hippocampal based spatial memory retrieval in a virtual Morris Water Maze task. Our study not only confirms the importance of MR function in spatial memory, but suggests beneficial effects of acute MR stimulation on spatial memory retrieval in humans.