High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The effects of stress on memory include interference with one’s capacity to encode and ability retrieve information. When stress occurs, the body reacts by secreting stress hormones into the blood stream. Stress can cause acute and chronic changes in certain brain areas which can cause long-term damages. Over-secretion of stress hormones most frequently affects memory negatively, but in a few cases can affect it positively. In particular, the hippocampus, prefrontal cortex and the amygdala are affected. One type of stress hormone responsible for affecting memory negatively is Glucocorticoids (GCs), also known as cortisol. Glucocorticoids facilitate and impair the actions of stress in the brain memory process. Cortisol is a known biomarker for stress. Under usual circumstances, the hippocampus regulates the production of cortisol because it has many receptors that are sensitive to these stress hormones. However, an excess of cortisol can...