ArticlePsychoneuroendocrinology2016
Exposure to acute stress enhances decision-making competence: Evidence for the role of DHEA.
Article in Psychoneuroendocrinology, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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
20 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 54 citations in OpenAlex.
- DHEA as a Biomarker of Stress: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2021Pooled it
- The effects of acute stress on core executive functions: A meta-analysis and comparison with cortisol.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2016Pooled it
- Acute stress impairs cognitive flexibility in men, not women.Stress (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2016Trial
- Effects of Alpha Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation on Stress Reactivity and Decision Making: A Randomized Sham-Controlled Trial.Biological psychiatry global open science · 2026Article
- Psychological, physical, and cognitive factors that influence tactical performance during a military relevant virtual reality scenario.Cognitive research: principles and implications · 2025Article
- The null effect of stress on cognitive flexibility in individuals with and without alcohol use disorder.Drug and alcohol dependence · 2025Article
- The Presence of a Shelter in an Open Field Test Has Differential Effects on the Behavior and Stress Response of Two Mouse Species.Journal of experimental zoology. Part A, Ecological and integrative physiology · 2025Article
- Decision-making under stress: A psychological and neurobiological integrative model.Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2024Article
- Relationship between COVID-related stressors and internalizing symptoms: Gendered neuroendocrine risk profiles.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2024Article
- When stress enhances memory encoding: The beneficial effects of changing context.Neurobiology of learning and memory · 2023Article
- Article
- Decision fatigue among clinical nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic.Journal of clinical nursing · 2022Article
- Risky Decision Making Under Stressful Conditions: Men and Women With Smaller Cortisol Elevations Make Riskier Social and Economic Decisions.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- Consideration of sex as a biological variable in the translation of pharmacotherapy for stress-associated drug seeking.Neurobiology of stress · 2021Review
- Personality, Stress, and Intuition: Emotion Regulation Abilities Moderate the Effect of Stress-Dependent Cortisol Increase on Coherence Judgments.Frontiers in psychology · 2020Article
- Sex-specific contribution of DHEA-cortisol ratio to prefrontal-hippocampal structural development, cognitive abilities and personality traits.Journal of neuroendocrinology · 2019Article
- Greater lifetime stress exposure predicts blunted cortisol but heightened DHEA responses to acute stress.Stress and health : journal of the International Society for the Investigation of Stress · 2019Article
- Role of DHEA and cortisol in prefrontal-amygdalar development and working memory.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2018Article
- Decision-Making Competence, Social Orientation, Time Style, and Perceived Stress.Frontiers in psychology · 2018Article
- Inflammation, Self-Regulation, and Health: An Immunologic Model of Self-Regulatory Failure.Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science · 2017Review
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 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Exposure to acute stress can impact performance on numerous cognitive abilities, but little is known about how acute stress affects real-world decision-making ability. In the present study, we induced acute stress with a standard laboratory task involving uncontrollable socio-evaluative stress and subsequently assessed decision-making ability using the Adult Decision Making Competence index. In addition, we took baseline and post-test saliva samples from participants to examine associations between decision-making competence and adrenal hormones. Participants in the stress induction group showed enhanced decision-making competence, relative to controls. Further, although both cortisol and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) reactivity predicted decision-making competence when considered in isolation, DHEA was a significantly better predictor than cortisol when both hormones were considered simultaneously. Thus, our results show that exposure to acute stress can have beneficial effects on the cognitive ability underpinning real-world decision-making and that this effect relates to DHEA reactivity more than cortisol.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.