A low cortisol response to acute stress is related to worse basal memory performance in older people

Age-related memory decline has been associated with a faulty regulation of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA-axis). The aim of this study was to investigate whether the magnitude of the stress-induced cortisol increase is related to memory performance when memory is measured in non-stressful conditions. To do so, declarative and working memory performance were measured in 31 men and 35 women between 55 and 77 years of age. On a different day, the magnitude of their cortisol response to acute psychosocial stress was measured. The relationship between the cortisol response and memory performance was U shaped: a low cortisol response to stress was related to poorer declarative and w…