Lifetime stress severity correlates with poorer learning performance and reduced putamen/ACC activation¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associational r2 · q3 · i3 large
Currency · newest study 2018 · checked against its sources 2026-10-20 (automated, 1 of 1 entry) · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i3 Higher lifetime stress was associated with poorer avoidance learning, less cognitive flexibility, and reduced putamen and ACC activation during reversal. → Harms Madeline B. 2018

Evidence¶

Harms Madeline B. 2018¶

Harms Madeline B., Shannon-Bowen Katherine E., Hanson Jamie L., Pollak Seth D. (2018). Instrumental Learning and Cognitive Flexibility Processes are Impaired in Children Exposed to Early Life Stress. Developmental Science. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12596

q3 · i3 · associational · r2

Pearson correlations with the Youth Life Stress Interview (controlling for SES) showed e.g. putamen rewarded-trials reversal activation r = −.46 and avoidance learning r = −.36 in the full sample; correlations held in the early stress group alone (e.g. r = −.56).

"Individuals who had experienced more lifetime stress showed poorer performance in avoidance learning during acquisition, and less cognitive flexibility during the reversal condition. In addition, higher lifetime stress was associated with reduced activation in the right putamen and ACC during reversal learning."

Discussion¶

Learner Variables¶

• Affect Regulation — predictor: learners who differ on it differ in outcomes

Related Claims¶

• ACC activation to reward during reversal is positively associated with reversal learning performance in stress-exposed adolescents — reports the opposite
• Stress-exposed adolescents show impaired cognitive flexibility in reversal learning — related
• Stress-exposed adolescents learn reward-punishment associations more slowly than controls during acquisition — related
• Stress-exposed adolescents show abnormal neural activation in learning- and attention-related regions — related
• Group differences in learning are more pronounced during reversal than acquisition — related
• Reward prediction errors are positively correlated with putamen, vmPFC, amygdala and posterior cingulate and anticorrelated with aIns, dmPFC and dlPFC — related
• Stress-exposed adolescents fail to follow the optimal exploratory strategy of initial indiscriminate responding — related