The Effects of Stress on Memory

Abstract

Stress throws the organisms’ body out of homeostatic balance. The physiological stress response acts by activation of two systems to balance the disturbance: the SNS and the HPA-axis. Stress has enhancing and impairing effects on memory processes: encoding, consolidation, and retrieval. These opposite effects may be explained if the different time courses of stress hormone, in particular catecholamine and GC actions are taken into account. This review will access the enhancing effects of stress on encoding and consolidation, and the impairing effects of stress on retrieval of memory processes.

Keywords: Consolidation, encoding, GCs, memory, retrieval, stress