Previous studies showed that healthy young adults who spontaneously use caudate nucleus-dependent strategies on a virtual navigation task, have significantly lower basal levels of cortisol compared with adults who use hippocampus-dependent spatial navigation strategies. In the current paper, we assessed the relation between basal cortisol levels and learning using a virtual navigation task in children. We show that basal cortisol level has a differential effect on learning and memory between children using spatial and response navigation strategies. Specifically, cortisol was found to be beneficial for learning performance in children using spatial strategies, such that higher levels of cortisol were associated with more efficient learning in a virtual maze. In contrast, cortisol had a deleterious effect on learning the virtual maze in children using response strategies, such that higher cortisol levels were associated with increased spatial working memory errors. Based on these results, individual differences in navigation strategy could help explain contradictory results in the literature showing that cortisol can have either a positive or negative association with learning and memory performance.

中文翻译：

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皮质醇对儿童学习和记忆的反作用，其使用的是空间对反应依赖的导航策略。

先前的研究表明，与使用海马依赖性空间导航策略的成年人相比，自发地在尾巴中使用尾状核依赖策略的健康年轻成年人的皮质醇基础水平显着降低。在当前的论文中，我们评估了儿童使用虚拟导航任务的基础皮质醇水平与学习之间的关系。我们显示基础皮质醇水平使用空间和响应导航策略对儿童之间的学习和记忆有不同的影响。具体而言，发现皮质醇对使用空间策略的儿童的学习成绩有利，因此，较高水平的皮质醇与虚拟迷宫中的更有效学习相关。相反，皮质醇对使用反应策略学习儿童虚拟迷宫有有害影响，因此较高的皮质醇水平与增加的空间工作记忆错误有关。根据这些结果，导航策略的个体差异可能有助于解释文献中的矛盾结果，这些结果表明皮质醇可能与学习和记忆能力呈正相关或负相关。