0658 Slow-Wave Sleep Disruption Decreases Ability to Recognize Certain Negative Emotions

Abstract

Introduction Research has demonstrated that sleep deprivation may alter emotion recognition. Given that emotion recognition is critical for effective human communication, it is essential to understand how sleep is involved in this process. Slow-wave sleep (SWS) has been suggested to be important for the consolidation and processing of emotional memories and neuroplasticity. This study aimed to examine the impact of experimental disruption of SWS on emotion recognition to further understand the contribution of SWS. Methods 31 participants (20 individuals diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), 11 healthy controls (HC)) completed two overnight sleep studies spaced one week apart. One night served as baseline (BL) and on the other night participants underwent slow-wave disruption (SWD), where SWS was disrupted using auditory stimulation. In the morning following each overnight visit, participants completed an emotion recognition task. Accuracy scores were computed as the percentage correct in each of 10 categories of emotions (anger, contempt, disgust, embarrassment, fear, joy, neutral, pride, sadness, and surprise). Repeated measures ANOVA was used to assess the impact of SWD on emotion recognition with group (HC, MDD) as the between subjects factor and condition (BL, SWD) as the within subjects factor. Results Results revealed a significant main effect of condition for disgust (F=13.72, p< .001), embarrassment (F=6.23, p=.019), and surprise (F=8.06, p=.008), with follow-up t-tests demonstrating that accuracy for the recognition of disgust and embarrassment decreased following SWD and accuracy for surprise increasing following SWD. No significant interactions were found for group*condition (ps>.105). Conclusion These results suggest that while SWD decreases the ability to recognize certain negative emotions, it also increases the ability to recognize surprise, which is in line with previous research examining acute total sleep deprivation. Interestingly, there appears to be no difference in the ability to recognize emotions between individuals with and without depression. Slow-wave sleep deficits, common in disorders such as depression and schizophrenia, may therefore contribute to poor communication abilities through decreased ability to recognize emotions, increasing the risk of interpersonal distress and mental health problems. Support (If Any) Goldschmied: K23MH118580 (NIMH)