Stimulus-specific enhancement of fear extinction during slow-wave sleep

Sleep has been shown to strengthen various types of memory, including emotional memory. Here the authors show that in subjects who have learned to associate an odor with an electric shock, re-exposure to the odor during slow-wave sleep promotes extinction of the memory for the odor-shock association...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inNature neuroscience Vol. 16; no. 11; pp. 1553 - 1555
Main Authors Hauner, Katherina K, Howard, James D, Zelano, Christina, Gottfried, Jay A
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York Nature Publishing Group US 01.11.2013
Nature Publishing Group
Subjects
631/378/1385/1814
631/378/1457/1284
631/378/1595/2636
631/378/2624
Adult
Animal Genetics and Genomics
Behavioral Sciences
Biological Techniques
Biomedicine
Brain - blood supply
Brain - physiology
brief-communication
Conditioning, Classical - physiology
Electroshock - adverse effects
Extinction (Learning)
Extinction, Psychological - physiology
Fear
Female
Galvanic Skin Response - physiology
Genetic aspects
Health aspects
Human subjects
Humans
Image Processing, Computer-Assisted
Linear Models
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
Memory
Multivariate Analysis
Neurobiology
Neurosciences
Odorants
Oxygen
Pattern Recognition, Visual
Photic Stimulation
Physiological aspects
Physiology
Sleep
Sleep - physiology
Slow wave sleep
Wakefulness
Young Adult
United States
United States > US
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:Sleep has been shown to strengthen various types of memory, including emotional memory. Here the authors show that in subjects who have learned to associate an odor with an electric shock, re-exposure to the odor during slow-wave sleep promotes extinction of the memory for the odor-shock association. Sleep can strengthen memory for emotional information, but whether emotional memories can be specifically targeted and modified during sleep is unknown. In human subjects who underwent olfactory contextual fear conditioning, re-exposure to the odorant context in slow-wave sleep promoted stimulus-specific fear extinction, with parallel reductions of hippocampal activity and reorganization of amygdala ensemble patterns. Thus, fear extinction may be selectively enhanced during sleep, even without re-exposure to the feared stimulus itself.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 14
content type line 23
ObjectType-Article-2
ObjectType-Feature-1
ISSN:1097-6256
1546-1726
1546-1726
DOI:10.1038/nn.3527