Emotional trait and memory associates of sleep timing and quality.

Poor ability to remember the extinction of conditioned fear, elevated trait anxiety, and delayed or disrupted nocturnal sleep are reported in anxiety disorders. The current study examines the interrelationship of these factors in healthy young-adult males. Skin-conductance response was conditioned to two differently colored lamps.

Extinction of conditioned fear is better learned and recalled in the morning than in the evening.

Sleep helps emotional memories consolidate and may promote generalization of fear extinction memory. We examined whether extinction learning and memory might differ in the morning and evening due, potentially, to circadian and/or sleep-homeostatic factors. Healthy men (N = 109) in 6 groups completed a 2-session protocol.

Modeling reconsolidation in kernel associative memory.

Memory reconsolidation is a central process enabling adaptive memory and the perception of a constantly changing reality. It causes memories to be strengthened, weakened or changed following their recall. A computational model of memory reconsolidation is presented.

Sleep promotes consolidation and generalization of extinction learning in simulated exposure therapy for spider fear.

Simulated exposure therapy for spider phobia served as a clinically naturalistic model to study effects of sleep on extinction. Spider-fearing, young adult women (N = 66), instrumented for skin conductance response (SCR), heart rate acceleration (HRA) and corrugator electromyography (EMG), viewed 14 identical 1-min videos of a behaving spider before a 12-hr delay containing a normal night's Sleep (N = 20) or continuous daytime Wake (N = 23), or a 2-hr delay of continuous wake in the Morning (N = 11) or Evening (N = 12). Following the delay, all groups viewed this same video 6 times followed by six 1-min videos of a novel spider.