Sleep deprivation increases threat beliefs in human fear conditioning

Abstract

Summary Sleep disturbances and anxiety disorders exhibit high comorbidity levels, but it remains unclear whether sleep problems are causes or consequences of increased anxiety. To experimentally probe the aetiological role of sleep disturbances in anxiety, we investigated in healthy participants how total sleep deprivation influences fear expression in a conditioning paradigm. In a fear conditioning procedure, one face stimulus (conditioned stimulus [CS+]) was paired with electric shock, whereas another face stimulus was not (unpaired stimulus [CS−]). Fear expression was tested the next morning using the two face stimuli from the training phase and a generalization stimulus (i.e. a morph between the CS+ and CS− stimuli). Between fear conditioning and test, participants were either kept awake in the laboratory for 12 hr (n = 20) or had a night of sleep at home (n = 20). Irrespective of stimulus type, subjective threat expectancies, but not skin conductance responses, were enhanced after sleep deprivation, relative to regular sleep. These results suggest that sleep disturbances may play a role in anxiety disorders by increasing perceived threat.

Poor sleep efficiency and daytime napping are risk factors of depersonalization disorder in female university students

“…Traditionally, sleep disturbance has been frequently viewed as a consequence of anxiety. However, sleep disturbances may not merely be a symptom, but also an etiological factor in the development of anxiety ( Zenses et al, 2019 ). For example, prospective studies demonstrate that sleep disturbances at baseline increase the likelihood of developing subsequent symptoms of anxiety ( Breslau et al, 1996 ; Jansson-Frojmark and Lindblom, 2008 ).…”

“…For example, prospective studies demonstrate that sleep disturbances at baseline increase the likelihood of developing subsequent symptoms of anxiety ( Breslau et al, 1996 ; Jansson-Frojmark and Lindblom, 2008 ). More recent experimental work suggests that experimentally induced sleep deprivation, for as little as one-night, serves to increase subjective threat expectancies, which is a recognized cognitive bias for the onset and maintenance of anxiety ( Zenses et al, 2019 ). As such, it is possible that participants in our study with poor sleep quality may have increased these subjective threat experiences resulting in higher rates of self-reported anxiety.…”

Experimental sleep loss, racial bias, and the decision criterion to shoot in the Police Officer’s Dilemma task

“…The collective data on decision criterion, therefore, favored the altered threat perception account. Nonetheless, we cannot dismiss the possibility that sleep loss also affects the decision criterion to shoot via amygdala/emotional reactivity, inhibitory inefficiency, impulsivity, altered ethical decision making, or general tendencies toward aggression [26][27][28][29][30][31][32] , accounts which are not necessarily mutually exclusive with the altered threat perception account.…”

“…Our findings also join a growing literature that implicates short and poor-quality sleep in stereotyping and bias toward out-groups 13,[16][17][18] , perhaps in a circadian-sensitive manner 19,20 . Sleep deprivation might lead to increased manifestations of discrimination by altering frontoparietal attentional processes 9,10 , amygdala/emotional reactivity processes 8,14 , and/or threat perception processes 15,26 . The first potential mechanism-altered frontoparietal attentional processes-relates to Ghumman and Barnes' 13 idea that resources are needed to maintain control over prejudices, and if such resources are depleted by sleep loss, then biases and discriminatory behaviors will manifest.…”

Restless legs syndrome, sleep over the lifespan, sleep in the severely ill, shift‐work and sleep loss

“…Another article from this issue I would like to highlight for you investigated whether sleep deprivation leads to an increase of threat beliefs in a human fear‐conditioning paradigm (Zenses, Lenaert, Peigneux, Beckers, & Boddez, 2020). This study used a fear‐conditioning procedure in a sample of 40 healthy volunteers with both males and females.…”