Aversive memories can be weakened during human sleep via the reactivation of positive interfering memories.

ABSTRACT: 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. Subs

SUBMITTER: Xia T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11295023 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature