Short-term versus long-term effects of adrenal hormones on behaviors

Hypothesizes that short-term exposures to stress facilitate performances of serially repetitive, overlearned tasks and impair performances of perceptual restructuring tasks, while long-term exposures to stress produce the opposite behavioral effects. These effects are attributed, in part, to the length of exposure of the central nervous system to stress-elicited adrenal hormones (epinephrine and cortisol). Short-term exposures are believed to induce states of central adrenergic dominance that favor performances of serially repetitive, overlearned tasks at the expense of perceptual restructuring tasks. Longer exposures are thought to result in a shift to central cholinergic dominance that favors the opposite pattern of performances. A physiological model is presented that accounts for the shift from central adrenergic to central cholinergic dominance. Experimental procedures derived from the model promote the reversal of some of the behavioral and physiological effects of a long-term stressor. (5 p ref)