Figure 2.

Effects of hydrocortisone (CORT) administration on brain activity during picture encoding. A, Negative main effect of CORT administration regardless of timing (z = 26); activity in prefrontal cortex was decreased due to CORT administration. Comparison of parameter estimates from this activation cluster (local maximum at [34, 26, 26]) to placebo revealed that PFC activity was significantly down regulated in the slow CORT condition. B, Simple effect contrasts of brain regions that were more active during picture processing under placebo conditions than under CORT (z = 26). The slow effects of corticosteroids clearly down regulated prefrontal cortex activity, whereas the rapid effects of corticosteroids did not. Baseline represents activity under placebo conditions. *P = 0.050. See Table I for formal statistical tests. Error bars represent SEM.