Acute Stress Facilitates Cognitive Control in Healthy Men: an fNIRS Study

Inhibitory control is crucial for humans to select useful information from the complex environment. The bilateral DLPFC, which is implicated in inhibitory control, was activated under psychological stress. The present study investigated the influence of acute psychological stress on inhibitory control process using the color-word Stroop task. The stress was induced by the Trier Social Stress Task (TSST). After TSST (stress group) or placebo TSST (control group), the male participants performed a color-word Stroop task, and their brain activity was measured using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). The results showed that elevated subjective stress, heart rate, and salivary cortisol were found in the stress than control groups, indicating that the stress had been induced successfully. Reduced RT Stroop effect (RT_incongruent - RT_congruent) was found for the stress group compared to the control group. The fNIRS results revealed greater activation in bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) in the stress than control groups. In addition, the activation in left DLPFC was increased for the stress than control groups in incongruent trials, but not in the congruent trials, resulting in a larger magnitude of the activation Stroop effect (activation_incongruent - activation_congruent) in the stress group. These results demonstrate that acute psychological stress may potentially improve inhibitory control in healthy men.