Investigation of early night sleep effects on subsequent fear extinction learning and recall

Abstract

Extinction learning is considered an important underlying process of successful treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, sleep disturbances may impede this learning process: Current accounts postulate that sleep facilitates encoding by promoting neural plasticity during slow wave sleep (SWS). Based on this hypothesis, we tested whether early night sleep, with high amounts of SWS, facilitates subsequent extinction learning and recall. Sixty-three participants took part in a trauma-adapted fear conditioning experiment. One group received a three-hour sleep opportunity in the early night half, whereas the other group stayed awake. Thereafter, both groups underwent extinction training and a return-of-fear test. Retention was assessed after another sleep opportunity in both groups. Linear mixed-effects models and Bayesian inference did not support the hypothesis of strengthened fear extinction by prior early night sleep. Subsequent exploratory analyses, in contrast, point to a role of rapid eye movement sleep in promoting successful fear extinction learning. Further confirmatory research should re-investigate these effects and their implications for the treatment of PTSD.

Infralimbic activity during REM sleep facilitates fear extinction memory

“…This finding aligns with research in humans showing that sleep deprivation after fear conditioning results in poor extinction memory 61,62 . Moreover, a recent study observed a positive relationship between the quantity of REM sleep preceding extinction learning and the strength of extinction memory in humans 63 . Likewise, studies in rats reported worse extinction memory when performing REM deprivation after conditioning in both cued and contextual fear tasks 64 .…”