ABSTRACT

Objective

Older adults with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) develop Alzheimer’s type dementia approximately 10 times faster annually than the normal population. Adrenal hormones are associated with aging and cognition. We investigated the relationship between acute stress, cortisol, and memory function in aMCI with an exploratory analysis of sex.

Method

Salivary cortisol was sampled diurnally and during two test sessions, one session with the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST), to explore differences in the relationship between cortisol and memory function in age-normal cognition (NA) and aMCI. Participants with aMCI (n = 6 women, 9 men; mean age = 75) or similarly aged NA (n = 9 women, 7 men, mean age = 75) were given tests of episodic, associative, and spatial working memory with a psychosocial stressor (TSST) in the second session.

Results

The aMCI group performed worse on the memory tests than NA as expected, and males with aMCI had elevated cortisol levels on test days. Immediate episodic memory was enhanced by social stress in NA but not in the aMCI group, indicating that stress-induced alterations in memory are different in individuals with aMCI. High cortisol was associated with impaired performance on episodic memory in aMCI males only. Cortisol in Session 1 moderated the relationship with spatial working memory, whereby higher cortisol was associated with worse performance in NA, but better spatial working memory in aMCI. In addition, effects of aMCI on perceived anxiety in response to stress exposure were moderated by stress-induced cortisol in a sex-specific manner.

Conclusions

We show effects of aMCI on Test Session cortisol levels and effects on perceived anxiety, and stress-induced impairments in memory in males with aMCI in our exploratory sample. Future studies should explore sex as a biological variable as our findings suggest that effects at the confluence of aMCI and stress can be obfuscated without sex as a consideration.

中文翻译：

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轻度认知障碍急性社交压力后皮质醇和记忆的性别差异

摘要

目的

患有轻度遗忘性轻度认知障碍（aMCI）的成年人每年患阿尔茨海默氏型痴呆的速度约为正常人群的10倍。肾上腺激素与衰老和认知有关。我们通过对性别的探索性分析，研究了aMCI中急性应激，皮质醇和记忆功能之间的关系。

方法

每天对唾液皮质醇进行采样，并在两次测试中进行一次采样，一次是通过Trier社会压力测试（TSST），以探讨年龄正常认知（NA）和aMCI中皮质醇与记忆功能之间关系的差异。参加aMCI（n = 6名女性，9名男性；平均年龄= 75）或类似年龄的NA（n = 9名女性，7名男性，平均年龄= 75）的参与者接受了社会心理测验的情景，联想和空间工作记忆测试第二节课中的压力源（TSST）。

结果

aMCI组在记忆力测试中的表现比预期的要差，不及NA，而患有aMCI的男性在测试日的皮质醇水平升高。在北美，社交压力增加了即时情景记忆，但在aMCI组则没有，这表明在aMCI患者中，压力诱发的记忆变化是不同的。高皮质醇仅与aMCI男性的情节记忆功能受损有关。第1节中的皮质醇缓解了与空间工作记忆的关系，其中较高的皮质醇与NA中较差的表现有关，但与aMCI中较好的空间工作记忆有关。此外，通过应激诱导的皮质醇以性别特异性的方式减轻了aMCI对应激暴露的感知焦虑的影响。

结论

在我们的探索性样本中，我们显示了aMCI对测试阶段皮质醇水平的影响以及对感知到的焦虑的影响，以及在aMCI的男性中，压力诱发的记忆障碍。未来的研究应将性别作为一种生物学变量进行探讨，因为我们的发现表明，无需考虑性别，就可以消除对aMCI和压力交汇处的影响。