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 same brain 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. The
current experiment sought to determine if depression would impair
selectivity for remembering important information among late adolescents.
93 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.