Human sleep consolidates allergic responses conditioned to the environmental context of an allergen exposure.

ABSTRACT: Allergies are highly prevalent, and allergic responses can be triggered even in the absence of allergens due to Pavlovian conditioning to a specific cue. Here we show in humans suffering from allergic rhinitis that merely reencountering the environmental context in which an allergen was administered a week earlier is sufficient to trigger an allergic response-but only if participants had slept after allergen exposure. This context-conditioning effect was entirely absent when participants stayed awake the night after allergen exposure or were tested in a different context. Unlike in context conditioning, cue conditioning (to an odor stimulus) occurred independently of sleep, a differential pattern that is likewise observed for conditioning in the behavioral domain. Our findings provide evid

SUBMITTER: Besedovsky L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7245114 | biostudies-literature | 2020 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature