Emotional trait and memory associates of sleep timing and quality

Abstract

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. One color but not the other was then extinguished. After varying delays, both colors were presented to determine extinction recall and generalization. Questionnaires measured sleep quality, morningness - eveningness, neuroticism and trait anxiety. A subset produced a mean 7.0 nights of actigraphy and sleep diaries. Median split of mean sleep midpoint defined early-and late-”sleep timers”. Extinction was more rapidly learned in the morning than evening only in early-timers, who also better generalized extinction recall. Extinction recall was greater with higher sleep efficiency. Sleep efficiency and morningness were negatively associated with neuroticism and anxiety. However, neuroticism and anxiety did not predict extinction learning, recall or generalization. Therefore, neuroticism/anxiety and deficient fear extinction, although both associated with poor quality and late timing of sleep, are not directly associated with each other. Elevated trait anxiety, in addition to predisposing directly to anxiety disorders, may thus also indirectly promote such disorders by impairing sleep and, consequently, extinction memory.

Social Jetlag is Independently Associated with Chronotype and Poor Memory for Extinguished Fear

“…In this secondary analysis of a larger study (Pace-Schott et al, 2013;Pace-Schott, Rubin et al, 2015), we extend our findings by measuring the association between SJ and extinction memory. Although sleep deprivation disrupts extinction memory (Pace-Schott, Germain et al, 2015), little work has addressed the effects of sleep timing irregularities on retention of extinction memory.…”

Impaired Fear Extinction Associated With PTSD Increases With Hours-Since-Waking

“…Poorer sleep quality in the PTSD group may reduce the restorative benefits of sleep, thereby increasing homeostatic sleep demands and producing a smaller window early in the day for maximum extinction potential. Further, recent evidence found extinction is learned faster and better generalized in the morning in participants who achieve sleep earlier and report higher‐morningness, suggesting chronotype may influence the present study's findings. Currently, the relationship between REM sleep and PTSD diagnosis is somewhat inconclusive, however further polysomnographic sleep studies examining REM sleep as a moderator between fear extinction and PTSD symptoms may clarify this relationship.…”

Resting state functional connectivity in primary insomnia, generalized anxiety disorder and controls

“…Such correlation of connectivity scores with multiple domains of functioning suggests a dimensional clinical significance to these resting state findings, beyond syndromal classifications. Although the sleep quality of GAD subjects was not assessed, its reduction relative to GS can be assumed from their statements on the SCID as well as from the well-replicated relationship between measures of anxiety and neuroticism (on which GAD scored maximally) and those of subjective sleep quality (e.g., Pace-Schott et al, 2015c). …”