Citation

Zuj DV, Palmer MA, Malhi GS, Bryant RA, Felmingham KL. Behav. Res. Ther. 2018; 110: 1-10.

Affiliation

School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne, VIC, Australia.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.brat.2018.08.005

PMID

30145363

Abstract

Fear reinstatement is one of several paradigms designed to measure fear return following extinction, as a laboratory model for the relapse of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptoms. Sleep is a key factor in emotional memory consolidation, and here we examined the relationship between sleep quality and fear reinstatement in PTSD, relative to trauma-exposed and non-exposed controls. The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) was used as a subjective measure of sleep quality, and skin conductance responses (SCR) and unconditioned stimulus (US)-expectancy ratings were used to index threat responses during a differential fear conditioning, extinction, and reinstatement paradigm. There were no significant between-group differences in the reinstatement of conditioned responding. Sleep disturbance and sleep onset latency were significant moderators between reinstatement of fear and PTSD symptom severity, such that there was a positive relationship between PTSD symptoms and fear reinstatement for higher levels - but not lower levels - of sleep disturbance and sleep onset latency. To our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate PTSD-specific reinstatement patterns and sleep as a boundary condition of reinstatement. Future research using polysomnographic measures of sleep-wave architecture may further clarify the relationship between fear reinstatement and sleep quality in clinical samples with PTSD relative to controls.

Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

Fear extinction; PTSD; Reinstatement; Sleep