As the clearest evidence, just a few days of high doses of synthetic glucocorticoids impairs explicit memory in healthy volunteers. As one problem in interpreting these studies, these synthetic hormones work a bit differently from the real stuff, and the levels administered produce higher circulating glucocorticoid levels than the body normally produces, even during stress. Importantly, stress itself, or infusion of stress levels of the type of glucocorticoid that naturally occurs in humans, disrupts memory as well. As with the nonhuman studies, implicit memory is fine, and it’s the recall,
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