 Several of her studies have examined memories of emotional events experienced under conditions of stress or sleep deprivation, which may be subject to distortion or false memory, due to the release of stress hormones.When someone is sleep deprived and under stress, frontal lobe circuits may be compromised and the amygdala may become hyperactive, resulting in elevated levels of cortisol which impacts memory consolidation.Payne and her colleagues have explored how memory may be enhanced when individuals sleep shortly after encoding new information.