Early life stress (ELS) and psychological stress have been shown to
interfere with memory and decision-making. Research in rodents suggests
these impairments stem from disruption of the brain regions responsible for
reward and value calculations. Major depression is associated with
impairment of one of these regions (nucleus accumbens) in humans undergoing
neuroimaging. However, there is a diverse body of research that suggests
people maintain the ability to selectively remember important information
in a variety of conditions where memory is impaired. This experiment sought
to determine if depression would impair selectivity for remembering
important information among late adolescents. XYZ Participants studied
lists of words that ranged in value from 1 to 10 points while completing a
tone-identification task during half of the lists; half underwent acute
stress induction via the Trier Social Stress Test prior to the memory task.
Participants also responded to validated self-report measures of ELS,
socioeconomic status (SES), and depression. Depression and acute stress
significantly impaired selectivity for value over and above the effects of
ELS and SES.