A sizeable literature has implicated sleep in the phenomenological experience of various mood disorders, vulnerability to psychopathology, and overall poor psychological functioning. By contrast, positive affective states (e.g., joy, happiness, vigor, positive mood) that may contribute to sleep have been understudied. This systematic review integrates findings from cross-sectional, longitudinal, ambulatory, and experimental studies that investigate the association between positive affect and sleep. A comprehensive search for all available research on the topic was performed in three electronic bibliographic databases (PubMed, PsycINFO, CINAHL). Two independent reviewers extracted data on study characteristics and quality. From 10,853 retrieved articles, 44 fulfilled inclusion criteria and formed the base of the review. The majority of studies (68.2%, n = 30) were classified as weak or having high risk of bias. In general, the pattern of findings suggests that aggregate or trait measures provide the most consistent evidence of an association between positive affect and sleep in healthy populations. More limited empirical data exist on the association between positive affect and sleep in clinical populations. We conclude that more rigorous and theoretically informed research is needed before firm conclusions can be drawn about the possible beneficial impact of positive affect on sleep outcomes.

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Background MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play a critical role in the carcinogenesis and progression of breast cancer. MiRNA-205 has tumor suppressive properties, whereas miRNA-18a has both oncogenic and tumor suppressive roles. MiRNA-744’s role in breast cancer is unknown, but is tumor-suppressive in vitro. We hypothesize that high expression of all three miRNAs is associated with a better survival based on their known functions in breast cancer. Methods All data was obtained from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). Expression of miRNA-18a, miRNA-205, and miRNA-744 were retrieved from the Genomic Data Commons (GDC) data portal for analyses. After miRNA-specific thresholds were derived and used to group the patients into a high or low expression group, survival data was calculated using the Cox proportional hazard model. Further subanalyses separating the patients based on receptor status and AJCC 7th edition TNM staging were similarly compared. Results 1052/1097 samples logged in TCGA had clinical data and miRNA-sequence datasets on the miRNAs of interest. High expression of miRNA-18a (p=0.079), miRNA-205 (p=0.034) and miRNA-744 (p=0.0135) was associated with a better survival. On subanalysis, estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR) positive, and lymph node negative disease had a statistically significant survival advantage with miRNA-18a, miRNA-205 and miRNA-744 high expression. Conclusions By utilizing a big dataset (TCGA) with sufficient statistical power, we found that high expression of miRNA-18a, miRNA-205, and miRNA-744 in the breast tumor samples were all associated with better overall survival in ER/PR positive, lymph node negative disease supporting their role as a tumor suppressor in breast cancer.

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Background: Gait difficulties, tremors, and coordination difficulties are common features of Cockayne syndrome that are consequences of leukodystrophy, cerebellar atrophy, and demyelinating neuropathy, but no pharmacotherapy for these disabling symptoms is available. Objective: To determine whether carbidopa-levodopa relieves tremors and other motor complications of Cockayne syndrome. Design: Mutation analysis and case report study. Setting: Hospital clinic and genetics research laboratory. Patients: We studied 3 patients with Cockayne syndrome, a rare autosomal recessive neurodegenerative disorder for which no known treatments are available. Intervention: Carbidopa-levodopa therapy. Main Outcome Measures: Status of tremors, ability to perform daily tasks, serial physical examinations, and results of handwriting samples. Results: All 3 patients had a clear reduction in tremors and improvements in handwriting and manipulation of utensils and cups. Conclusions: Patients with Cockayne syndrome should be evaluated carefully for movement disorders. A clinical trial should be considered to evaluate this therapy further.

Strong evidence suggests that sleep plays a role in memory consolidation, which involves both stabilizing memory into long-term storage as well as integrating new information into existing stores. The current study investigated consolidation, across a day of wakefulness or night of sleep, of emotional and neutral directly learned visual paired associates (A-B/B-C pairs) as well as formation of memory for relational pairs formed via overlapping learned components (A-C pairs). Participants learned 40 negative and 40 neutral face-object pairs followed by a baseline test in session 1 either in the morning or evening. They then spent a 12-hour retention period during which participants either went about their normal day or spent the night in the sleep lab. During session 2, participants completed a surprise test to assess their memory for relational pairs (A-C) as well as memory for direct associates (A-B/B-C). As hypothesized, the results demonstrated that a 12-hour retention period predominantly spent asleep, compared to awake, benefited memory for both relational and direct associative memory. However, contrary to the hypothesis that emotional salience would promote preferential consolidation, sleep appeared to benefit both negative and neutral information similarly for direct associative and relational memories, suggesting that sleep may interact with other factors affecting encoding (e.g., depth of encoding) to benefit direct and relational associative memory. As one of the few studies examining the role of nocturnal sleep and emotion on both direct and relational associative memory, our findings suggest key insights into how overnight sleep consolidates these different forms of memory.

Both stress and sleep enhance emotional memory. They also interact, with the largest effect of sleep on emotional memory being seen when stress occurs shortly before or after encoding. Slow wave sleep (SWS) is critical for long-term episodic memory, facilitated by the temporal coupling of slow oscillations and sleep spindles. Prior work in humans has shown these associations for neutral information in non-stressed participants. Whether coupling interacts with stress to facilitate emotional memory formation is unknown. Here, we addressed this question by reanalyzing an existing dataset of 64 individuals. Participants underwent a psychosocial stressor (32) or comparable control (32) prior to the encoding of 150-line drawings of neutral, positive, and negative images. All participants slept overnight with polysomnography, before being given a surprise memory test the following day. In the stress group, time spent in SWS was positively correlated with memory for images of all valences. Results were driven by those who showed a high cortisol response to the stressor, compared to low responders. The amount of slow oscillation-spindle coupling during SWS was negatively associated with neutral and emotional memory in the stress group only. The association with emotional memory was significantly stronger than for neutral memory within the stress group. These results suggest that stress around the time of initial memory formation impacts the relationship between slow wave sleep and memory..

Previous research points to an association between retrieval-related activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and preservation of emotional information compared with co-occurring neutral information following sleep. Although the role of the mPFC in emotional memory likely begins at encoding, little research has examined how mPFC activity during encoding interacts with consolidation processes to enhance emotional memory. This issue was addressed in the present study using transcranial magnetic stimulation in conjunction with an emotional memory paradigm. Healthy young adults encoded negative and neutral scenes while undergoing concurrent TMS with a modified short intermittent theta burst stimulation (sTBS) protocol. Participants received stimulation to either the mPFC or an active control site (motor cortex) during the encoding phase. Recognition memory for scene components (objects and backgrounds) was assessed after a short delay (30 min) and a long delay [24 h (including a night of sleep)] to obtain measures of specific and gist-based memory processes. The results demonstrated that, relative to control stimulation, sTBS to the mPFC enhanced memory for negative objects on the long delay test (collapsed across specific and gist-based memory measures). mPFC stimulation had no discernable effect on memory for objects on the short delay test nor on the background images at either test. These results suggest that mPFC activity occurring during encoding interacts with consolidation processes to preferentially preserve negatively salient information.