Disarming emotional memories using targeted memory reactivation during rapid eye movement sleep.

ABSTRACT: Rapid Eye Movement Sleep (REM) is thought to process emotions via memory reactivation. Such REM reactivation can be triggered by presenting a tone associated with the target memory. This reduces subjective arousal ratings for negative stimuli. Here, we measure arousal objectively in brain and autonomic system. Participants rated negative image-sound pairs, half of which were then re-presented during subsequent REM. All images were re-rated in a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanner with pulse oximetry 48 h after encoding. Reactivation in REM reduced responses in the brain's Salience Network (SN), including Anterior Insula and dorsal Anterior Cingulate Cortex (dACC), and associated emotion-processing regions: orbitofrontal cortex, subgenual cingulate, and left amygdala. Memory reactivati

SUBMITTER: Greco V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12516159 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature