REM Sleep Preserves Affective Response to Social Stress: Experimental Study

Risto Halonen, Liisa Kuula, Maikki Nea Sofia Selin, Alma Serafia Suutari, Asta Minea Antila, Anu-Katriina Pesonen

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

Abstract

Sleep's contribution to affective regulation is insufficiently understood. Previous human research has focused on memorizing or rating affective pictures and less on physiological affective responsivity. This may result in overlapping definitions of affective and declarative memories and inconsistent deductions for how rapid eye movement sleep (REMS) and slow-wave sleep (SWS) are involved. Literature associates REMS theta (4–8 Hz) activity with emotional memory processing, but its contribution to social stress habituation is unknown. Applying selective sleep stage suppression and oscillatory analyses, we investigated how sleep modulated affective adaptation toward social stress and retention of neutral declarative memories. Native Finnish participants (N = 29; age, M = 25.8 years) were allocated to REMS or SWS suppression conditions. We measured physiological (skin conductance response, SCR) and subjective stress response and declarative memory retrieval thrice: before laboratory night, the next morning, and after 3 d. Linear mixed models were applied to test the effects of condition and sleep parameters on emotional responsivity and memory retrieval. Greater overnight increase in SCR toward the stressor emerged after suppressed SWS (intact REMS) relative to suppressed REMS (20.1% vs 6.1%; p = 0.016). The overnight SCR increase was positively associated with accumulated REMS theta energy irrespective of the condition (r = 0.601; p = 0.002). Subjectively rated affective response and declarative memory recall were comparable between the conditions. The contributions of REMS and SWS to habituation of social stress are distinct. REMS theta activity proposedly facilitates the consolidation of autonomic affective responses. Declarative memory consolidation may not have greater dependence on intact SWS relative to intact REMS.
Original languageEnglish
Article number0453232024
JournaleNeuro
Volume11
Issue number6
Number of pages14
ISSN2373-2822
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2024
MoE publication typeA1 Journal article-refereed

Fields of Science

  • 515 Psychology

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