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Sleep deprivation increases threat beliefs in human fear conditioning
Author(s) -
Zenses AnnKathrin,
Lenaert Bert,
Peigneux Philippe,
Beckers Tom,
Boddez Yannick
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of sleep research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.297
H-Index - 117
eISSN - 1365-2869
pISSN - 0962-1105
DOI - 10.1111/jsr.12873
Subject(s) - fear conditioning , psychology , stimulus (psychology) , anxiety , sleep deprivation , classical conditioning , audiology , fear potentiated startle , conditioning , neutral stimulus , developmental psychology , clinical psychology , neuroscience , psychiatry , circadian rhythm , medicine , stimulus control , cognitive psychology , statistics , mathematics , nicotine
Summary Sleep disturbances and anxiety disorders exhibit high comorbidity levels, but it remains unclear whether sleep problems are causes or consequences of increased anxiety. To experimentally probe the aetiological role of sleep disturbances in anxiety, we investigated in healthy participants how total sleep deprivation influences fear expression in a conditioning paradigm. In a fear conditioning procedure, one face stimulus (conditioned stimulus [ CS +]) was paired with electric shock, whereas another face stimulus was not (unpaired stimulus [ CS −]). Fear expression was tested the next morning using the two face stimuli from the training phase and a generalization stimulus (i.e. a morph between the CS + and CS − stimuli). Between fear conditioning and test, participants were either kept awake in the laboratory for 12 hr ( n = 20) or had a night of sleep at home ( n = 20). Irrespective of stimulus type, subjective threat expectancies, but not skin conductance responses, were enhanced after sleep deprivation, relative to regular sleep. These results suggest that sleep disturbances may play a role in anxiety disorders by increasing perceived threat.