Abstract
Emerging evidence suggests that emotion and affect modulate the relation between sleep and cognition. In the present study, we investigated the role of rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep in mood regulation and memory consolidation for sad stories. In a counterbalanced design, participants (n = 24) listened to either a neutral or a sad story during two sessions, spaced one week apart. After listening to the story, half of the participants had a short (45 min) morning nap. The other half had a long (90 min) morning nap, richer in REM and N2 sleep. Story recall, mood evolution and changes in emotional response to the re-exposure to the story were assessed after the nap. Although recall performance was similar for sad and neutral stories irrespective of nap duration, sleep measures were correlated with recall performance in the sad story condition only. After the long nap, REM sleep density positively correlated with retrieval performance, while re-exposure to the sad story led to diminished mood and increased skin conductance levels. Our results suggest that REM sleep may not only be associated with the consolidation of intrinsically sad material, but also enhances mood reactivity, at least on the short term.
Highlights
Memory consolidation is the process by which newly learned and fragile information is progressively converted into more robust, steadier representations for long-term memory storage [1].Importantly, emotional processes modulate memory consolidation as well as encoding and retrieval [2,3]
We propose that the effect of sleep on sad memory consolidation and on emotion regulation would be best studied in a longitudinal manner, with both short- and long-term assessments of memory and emotional reactivity
We tested the effect of sleep, in particular rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep, on the consolidation of sad memories and the associated emotional reactivity
Summary
Memory consolidation is the process by which newly learned and fragile information is progressively converted into more robust, steadier representations for long-term memory storage [1]. Emotional processes modulate memory consolidation as well as encoding and retrieval [2,3]. As a result, arousing emotionally loaded memories are often better remembered than neutral memories that lack a specific affective component [4]. It is widely recognized that post-learning sleep contributes to memory consolidation [5,6], the sleep-dependent mechanisms underlying emotional regulation and consolidation of emotionally tinted memories represent a more recent but growing domain of interest [7,8,9]. Several studies suggest that sleep is important for affective regulation. Poor sleep quality results in decreased cognitive reappraisal [10,11,12] and enhanced reactivity toward
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