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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Mar 13, 2026

Using Practice Testing, Public Speaking, and Source Monitoring to Examine the Influences of Learning Strategies and Stress on Episodic Memory
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Stress as a mnemonic filter: Interactions between medial temporal lobe encoding processes and post-encoding stress.

Maureen Ritchey1,2, Andrew M McCullough3, Charan Ranganath2,3

  • 1Department of Psychology, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts.

Hippocampus
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Summary

Acute stress selectively preserves memories tagged during encoding, acting as a mnemonic filter. Stress hormone levels influenced memory outcomes based on medial temporal lobe activity during initial learning.

Keywords:
emotional memoryfunctional magnetic resonance imagingstress

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Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Psychobiology

Background:

  • Acute stress impacts memory consolidation via stress hormones affecting the medial temporal lobe (MTL).
  • The specific memories affected by post-encoding stress remain unclear.
  • Encoding processes may tag memories, influencing how consolidation manipulations affect recall.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate if post-encoding stress effects on memory depend on medial temporal lobe activity during the initial encoding phase.
  • To test the hypothesis that stress selectively preserves memories based on hippocampal and amygdala responses during encoding.

Main Methods:

  • Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used in human participants.
  • Cortisol reactivity was measured to assess stress hormone levels.
  • The relationship between MTL activity during encoding and subsequent memory recall was analyzed.

Main Results:

  • Increased cortisol reactivity correlated with greater dependency of memory outcomes on hippocampal and amygdala encoding responses.
  • Memories were more likely to be recalled if they elicited higher activation in MTL structures during encoding, particularly in high-cortisol individuals.
  • This stress-induced memory selection effect was unexpectedly larger for neutral memories than for emotionally negative ones.

Conclusions:

  • Stress does not uniformly enhance memory; instead, it acts as a mnemonic filter, selectively preserving memories tagged during encoding.
  • The findings highlight the interaction between encoding processes and stress during memory consolidation.
  • Post-encoding stress modulates memory by prioritizing information associated with significant MTL engagement during learning.