Department of Psychology, The State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region 999077, China.
Department of Psychiatry, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA 02215.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2024 Jul 30;121(31):e2400678121. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2400678121. Epub 2024 Jul 25.
Recollecting painful or traumatic experiences can be deeply troubling. Sleep may offer an opportunity to reduce such suffering. We developed a procedure to weaken older aversive memories by reactivating newer positive memories during sleep. Participants viewed 48 nonsense words each paired with a unique aversive image, followed by an overnight sleep. In the next evening, participants learned associations between half of the words and additional positive images, creating interference. During the following non-rapid-eye-movement sleep, auditory memory cues were unobtrusively delivered. Upon waking, presenting cues associated with both aversive and positive images during sleep, as opposed to not presenting cues, weakened aversive memory recall while increasing positive memory intrusions. Substantiating these memory benefits, computational modeling revealed that cueing facilitated evidence accumulation toward positive affect judgments. Moreover, cue-elicited theta brain rhythms during sleep predominantly predicted the recall of positive memories. A noninvasive sleep intervention can thus modify aversive recollection and affective responses.
回忆痛苦或创伤性经历可能会让人深感困扰。睡眠也许是减轻这种痛苦的一个机会。我们开发了一种程序，通过在睡眠期间重新激活新的积极记忆来削弱旧的厌恶记忆。参与者观看了 48 个无意义的单词，每个单词都与一个独特的厌恶图像配对，然后进行一夜的睡眠。在第二天晚上，参与者学习了一半单词和其他附加积极图像之间的关联，从而产生干扰。在接下来的非快速眼动睡眠期间，听觉记忆线索被不显眼地传递。醒来后，与睡眠期间的厌恶和积极图像相关的线索相比不呈现线索，削弱了对厌恶记忆的回忆，同时增加了积极记忆的闯入。计算模型证实了这些记忆益处，表明线索促进了积极情绪判断的证据积累。此外，睡眠期间诱发出的θ脑节律主要预测了积极记忆的回忆。因此，一种非侵入性的睡眠干预可以改变厌恶的回忆和情感反应。
