Trial reportNeuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology2013
Blocking mineralocorticoid receptors impairs, blocking glucocorticoid receptors enhances memory retrieval in humans.
Trial report in Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 38 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
38 citing papers in PubMed, 89 citations in OpenAlex.
- Cortisol suppression impairs retrieval of emotional memory and changes its neural correlates immediately and four days post-treatment.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Trial
- Cognitive and emotional empathy after stimulation of brain mineralocorticoid and NMDA receptors in patients with major depression and healthy controls.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2020Trial
- Effects of mineralocorticoid receptor blockade on empathy in patients with major depressive disorder.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2016Trial
- Effect of mineralocorticoid receptor blockade on hippocampal-dependent memory in adults with obesity.Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.) · 2015Trial
- Blocking the mineralocorticoid receptor in humans prevents the stress-induced enhancement of centromedial amygdala connectivity with the dorsal striatum.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2015Trial
- Mineralocorticoid receptor stimulation improves cognitive function and decreases cortisol secretion in depressed patients and healthy individuals.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2015Trial
- Enhanced emotional empathy after mineralocorticoid receptor stimulation in women with borderline personality disorder and healthy women.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2014Trial
- Functional loss of PKMζ in the dorsal hippocampus potentiates the time-dependent increase in false contextual fear memory and impairs spatial recognition memory in mice.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- Corticosterone Contributes to Context-Triggered Retrieval of Morphine Withdrawal Memories by Acting on Basolateral Amygdala Neurons Projecting to Nucleus Accumbens Core.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2025Article
- Prevalence and Incidence of Dementia in Patients With Non-Overtly Functional Adrenal Tumours.Clinical endocrinology · 2025Article
- Cross-sectional association between plasma aldosterone concentration and cognitive performance by mini-mental state examination in community dwellers.Frontiers in nutrition · 2025Article
- Mineralocorticoid Receptor and Sleep Quality in Chronic Kidney Disease.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Review
- The cortisol switch between vulnerability and resilience.Molecular psychiatry · 2024Review
- The Hypothalamus-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis and Social Cognition in Borderline Personality Disorder.Current neuropharmacology · 2024Review
- Coping with the multifaceted and multifunctional role of cortisol in the brain.Neuroscience applied · 2024Review
- The infralimbic mineralocorticoid blockage prevents the stress-induced impairment of aversive memory extinction in rats.Translational psychiatry · 2022Article
- Brain mineralocorticoid receptor in health and disease: From molecular signalling to cognitive and emotional function.British journal of pharmacology · 2022Article
- Stress axis programming generates long-term effects on cognitive abilities in a cooperative breeder.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2022Article
- The Effect of Spironolactone on β-amyloid-Induced Memory Impairment in Male Rats: The Role of Microglial Inhibition.Advanced pharmaceutical bulletin · 2022Article
- Psycho-Behavioural Changes in Dogs Treated with Corticosteroids: A Clinical Behaviour Perspective.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Memory retrieval is impaired at very low as well as very high cortisol levels, but not at intermediate levels. This inverted-U-shaped relationship between cortisol levels and memory retrieval may originate from different roles of the mineralocorticoid (MR) and glucocorticoid receptor (GR) that bind cortisol with distinctly different affinity. Here, we examined the role of MRs and GRs in human memory retrieval using specific receptor antagonists. In two double-blind within-subject, cross-over designed studies, young healthy men were asked to retrieve emotional and neutral texts and pictures (learnt 3 days earlier) between 0745 and 0915 hours in the morning, either after administration of 400 mg of the MR blocker spironolactone vs placebo (200 mg at 2300 hours and 200 mg at 0400 hours, Study I) or after administration of the GR blocker mifepristone vs placebo (200 mg at 2300 hours, Study II). Blockade of MRs impaired free recall of both texts and pictures particularly for emotional material. In contrast, blockade of GRs resulted in better memory retrieval for pictures, with the effect being more pronounced for neutral than emotional materials. These findings indicate indeed opposing roles of MRs and GRs in memory retrieval, with optimal retrieval at intermediate cortisol levels likely mediated by high MR but concurrently low GR activation.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.