Greater sleep disturbance and longer sleep onset latency facilitate SCR-specific fear reinstatement in PTSD

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 ..