Figure 1
(a) Experimental procedure. At Learning, participants learned and immediately recalled texts and pictures of emotional and neutral nature. Three days later, retrieval of the materials (Free recall followed by Recognition tests) was tested between 0745 and 0915 hours, that is, the time of the cortisol morning rise. Participants spent the night before retrieval testing in the sleep laboratory and were administered placebo or the active agent. In Study I, the active agent was the MR blocker spironolactone (200 mg, at 2300 hours and 200 mg at 0400 hours). In Study II, participants received 200 mg of the GR blocker mifepristone at 2300 hours. To keep procedures consistent across both studies, in Study II participants were also woken up at 0400 hours but received placebo. At least 10 days later, the procedure was repeated with different material and participants received the treatment they had not received the first time. (b) Mean±SEM plasma cortisol concentration at retrieval. Horizontal bar indicates time of testing. Spironolactone (filled squares) and (c) mifepristone (filled squares) led to a stronger increase in the morning cortisol rise compared with the placebo condition (empty circles). **p<0.01; *p<0.05 for pairwise comparisons between the treatment conditions at the different time points. The displayed images contain similar content as the IAPS images that were used in the studies.
