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Oct 24, 2023

Stress Amplifies the Brain’s Ability to Encode Memory, New Study Finds

Posted by in category: neuroscience

Stress may enhance the brain’s ability to encode and store memory, a new Yale study finds.

A team led by Yale Department of Psychiatry’s Elizabeth Goldfarb, PhD, found study participants were more able to remember specific pairings of images after taking cortisol, a key stress hormone.

“We discovered this pathway where cortisol is helping the hippocampus talk to itself, and that helps people remember emotional experiences better,” Goldfarb says.


The hippocampus is a key brain region involved in encoding memory. Cortisol boosts connectivity in this region to enhance memory, according to Yale researchers.

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