Unraveling the Neurocognitive Effects of Caregiver Stress Recall: An fNIRS Investigation

Caregiving is a rewarding and strenuous activity that affects the physiological, psychological, and cognitive processes in the human body. While caregiving stress has been studied previously, these studies have overlooked a common symptom of experiencing stress: rumination. The present study explored how recalling stressful caregiving experiences affected caregiver stress levels and their performance on a test of executive function. Neural correlates underlying cognitive performance were also examined. The findings indicate that lifetime duration of caregiving activities, not recalling stressful experiences, is associated with poorer performance on the AX-CPT, though no changes in neural correlates were observed.