A stressful day … If only I could remember it!
This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science.
Stress affects memory formation. The hippocampus, our brains’ memory center, could show us why.
Kai Schüren and team from University of Hamburg tested a hundred people’s memories.
Participants first learned pairs of animal-face images. The next day, half of the group were put under stress. Afterwards, they all learned a set of animal shapes. Then, participants tried to connect shapes back to faces while being monitored in an MRI.
And? Stressed participants showed decreased hippocampal activity and struggled to recall the faces after learning animal shapes.
So maybe you are forgetful, or maybe … you just need a spa day.
Schüren, K. A., Varga, N. L., Heinbockel, H., Preston, A. R., Roozendaal, B., & Schwabe, L. (2026). Stress disrupts hippocampal integration of overlapping events and memory inference in humans. Science Advances, 12(21). https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aea5496