The effects of perceived stress and anhedonic depression on mnemonic similarity task performance

Previous research has demonstrated hippocampal alterations in individuals experiencing elevated stress. The Mnemonic Similarity Task (MST) is a hippocampal-dependent task sensitive to age-related hippocampal decline, but it is unknown how performance on this task is related to one's experience of daily stress. We conducted separate discovery and replication analyses in 510 participants who completed the MST across four different Mechanical Turk studies. We hypothesized that higher scores on the Perceived Stress Scale would be associated with poorer discrimination of "lure" items from previously seen targets - a behavioral index of pattern separation - but not with recognition memory. The zero-order relationship between perceived stress and lure discrimination was not significant in the discovery or replication sample. Exploratory analyses involving anhedonic depression symptoms (from the Mood and Anxiety Symptoms Questionnaire) revealed a robust perceived stress*anhedonic depression interaction in the discovery sample that was confirmed in the replication sample. In both samples, individuals with low but not high anhedonic depression symptoms showed an inverse association between perceived stress and lure discrimination ability. Contrary to hypotheses, a similar interaction was observed for recognition memory. The novel association between perceived stress and behavioral pattern separation suggests a candidate behavioral process associated with stress-related hippocampal deficits. The specificity of this effect for individuals with low anhedonic depression symptoms - and the lack of behavioral specificity - highlight the need for additional research to unpack the clinical and neurobiological significance of these findings.