Acute stress impairs intentional memory suppression through aberrant prefrontal cortex activation in high trait ruminators

Jixin Long; Lanxin Peng; Qian Li; Lijing Niu; Haowei Dai; Jiayuan Zhang; Keyin Chen; Tatia Mc Lee; Meiyan Huang; Ruibin Zhang

doi:10.1016/j.ijchp.2024.100463

Acute stress impairs intentional memory suppression through aberrant prefrontal cortex activation in high trait ruminators

Int J Clin Health Psychol. 2024 Apr-Jun;24(2):100463. doi: 10.1016/j.ijchp.2024.100463. Epub 2024 Apr 25.

Authors

Jixin Long^{1

2

3}, Lanxin Peng^{1

2}, Qian Li^{1

2}, Lijing Niu^{1

2}, Haowei Dai^{1

2}, Jiayuan Zhang^{1

2}, Keyin Chen^{1

2}, Tatia Mc Lee^{4

5}, Meiyan Huang⁶, Ruibin Zhang^{1

2

7}

Affiliations

¹ Laboratory of Cognitive Control and Brain Healthy, Department of Psychology, School of Public Health, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, PR China.
² Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Center for Brain Science and Brain-Inspired Intelligence, Guangdong-Hong Kong Joint Laboratory for Psychiatric Disorders, Guangdong Basic Research Center of Excellence for Integrated Traditional and Western Medicine for Qingzhi Diseases, PR China.
³ Department of Applied Social Science, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, SAR, PR China.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, SAR, PR China.
⁵ Laboratory of Neuropsychology and Human Neuroscience, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, SAR, PR China.
⁶ School of Biomedical Engineering, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, PR China.
⁷ Department of Psychiatry, Zhujiang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, PR China.

Abstract

Objective: Research shows that the effect of acute stress on intentional memory suppression could be modulated by individual differences in psychological traits. However, whether acute stress distinctly affects intentional memory suppression in high trait ruminators, a high at-risk group of stress-related disorders, and the neural correlations, remains unclear.

Method: 55 healthy college students were divided into high and low trait ruminators (HTR and LTR), Following stress manipulation, a Think/No Think task assessed the memory suppression performance. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy was applied to explore the neural correlates. Psychophysiological interaction analyses were used to assess how the functional connectivity between a seed region and another brain region was modulated by tasks during memory suppression, further mediating memory suppression performance and state rumination.

Results: The HTR exhibited poorer memory suppression performance than the LTR under the stress condition. Aberrant activation patterns and task-modulated functional connectivity in the dorsal prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and superior temporal gyrus (STG) were observed only in the HTR during memory suppression under the stress condition. The effect of memory suppression performance on the state rumination of individuals was significantly mediated by the task-modulated functional connectivity between the DLPFC and STG.

Conclusions: The findings could provide insights for prevention or early intervention in the development of stress-related disorders in HTR.

Keywords: Acute stress; Functional near-infrared spectroscopy; Memory suppression; State rumination.