- Enseignant-e: Monika Riegel
This interdisciplinary seminar combines research from experimental psychology, neuroendocrinology, affective and cognitive neuroscience and psychiatry to elucidate how human memory is modulated by emotion and stress. It will focus on hormonal mechanisms and related sex differences in cognition.
Grounded in a gender medicine perspective, the course highlights how changes in stress hormones (e.g., cortisol, noradrenaline) and fluctuations of sex hormones (e.g., estrogen, progesterone, testosterone) modulate episodic memory and its temporal organization.
We will explore how emotional and stress-related processes influence memory and perception of events over time and how these effects are represented in the brain, drawing on evidence from functional neuroimaging (fMRI) and emerging neuromodulation approaches.
Special attention will be given to understudied factors, including the effects of hormonal fluctuations on cognition in females, and to the role of these mechanisms in females' vulnerability to stress- and memory-related psychiatric disorders.
During the semester, we will address the following questions: a) What are current models of emotional memory and memory under stress? b) What methods are used to study the effects of emotion and stress on episodic memory? c) What the neural mechanisms of episodic memory are and how they are affected by stress and sex hormones d) What is the relationship between hormonal effects on cognition and psychiatric disorders? e) What is the clinical relevance and possible applications of these findings?
The course takes the form of (weekly) 2-hour classes. The meetings will be based on pre-class readings of scientific articles, prepared presentation and discussion sessions.