ArticleJournal of neural transmission (Vienna, Austria : 1996)2025
Post-awakening cortisol and resilience: unravelling their impact on cognitive decline.
Article in Journal of neural transmission (Vienna, Austria : 1996), 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Age-associated cognitive decline is a growing social problem and a major concern for older adults, highlighting the need to identify modifiable factors to mitigate it. The basal functioning of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, and, especially, the post-awakening cortisol levels, seems to play a key role in cognitive performance related to functions dependent on the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. Regulating these cortisol levels is crucial in this context, and resilience has been recognized as vital for successful aging and cognitive functioning. This study was designed to examine how post-awakening cortisol levels (both the cortisol awakening response, CAR (AUCi) and total post-awakening cortisol secretion, AUCg) could predict cognitive decline across different domains, and explore the role of resilience in this relationship. To investigate this, a follow-up study conducted between 2018 (Wave 1, W1) and 2022 (Wave 2, W2) included 53 healthy adults who completed tasks assessing verbal fluency, executive function, declarative memory, and resilience in both waves to study the cognitive decline. Moreover, in W1, participants provided four morning saliva samples on two consecutive working days to assess post-awakening cortisol levels on days that were different from the cognitive testing sessions. Results showed a negative association between AUCg and both phonemic and semantic fluency decline, but not in other cognitive domains, indicating a beneficial effect of post-awakening cortisol secretion on cognitive maintenance that appears be domain specific. In addition, resilience positively mediated the association between the CAR and the maintenance of semantic fluency. These findings underscore the role of post-awakening cortisol levels in supporting resilience and protecting prefrontal cortex-dependent functions, such as semantic fluency, over functions reliant on the hippocampus.
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.