TY - JOUR PY - 2019// TI - Sleep deprivation increases threat beliefs in human fear conditioning JO - Journal of sleep research A1 - Zenses, Ann-Kathrin A1 - Lenaert, Bert A1 - Peigneux, Philippe A1 - Beckers, Tom A1 - Boddez, Yannick SP - e12873 EP - e12873 VL - ePub IS - ePub N2 - 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.

© 2019 The Authors. Journal of Sleep Research published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Sleep Research Society.

Language: en

LA - en SN - 0962-1105 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jsr.12873 ID - ref1 ER -