Abstract
Sleep is intimately linked to cognitive performance and exposure to traumatic stress that leads to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) impairs both sleep and cognitive function. However, the contribution of pre-trauma sleep loss to subsequent trauma-dependent fear-associated memory impairment remains unstudied. We hypothesized that sleep deprivation (SD) prior to trauma exposure may increase the severity of a PTSD-like phenotype in rats exposed to single prolonged stress (SPS), a rodent model of PTSD. Rats were exposed to SPS alone, SD alone, or a combination of SPS+SD and measures of fear-associated memory impairments and vigilance state changes were compared to a group of control animals not exposed to SPS or SD. We found that SPS, and SPS+SD animals showed impaired fear-associated memory processing and that the addition of SD to SPS did not further exaggerate the effect of SPS alone. Additionally, the combination of SPS with SD results in a unique homeostatic sleep duration phenotype when compared to SD, SPS, or control animals. SPS exposure following SD represses homeostatic rebound and eliminates sleep-deprivation-induced increases in NREM sleep delta power. This work identifies a unique time frame where trauma exposure and sleep interact and identifies this window of time as a potential therapeutic treatment window for staving off the negative consequences of trauma exposure.
Highlights
IntroductionLack of sleep impairs physical and cognitive functioning and sleep disturbances are often comorbid with and may exacerbate other mental or physical health impairments [1,2,3,4]
According to the National Institutes of Health and Institute of Medicine, 50–70 million US adults suffer from a sleep disorder that effectively interferes with getting sufficient nighttime sleep
The average percent time freezing during the fear conditioning training was significantly increased in single prolonged stress (SPS) (72.99 ± 9.5%) and SPS+sleep deprivation (SD) (64.6 ± 11.3%) exposed animals compared to controls (45.67 ± 8.0%)
Summary
Lack of sleep impairs physical and cognitive functioning and sleep disturbances are often comorbid with and may exacerbate other mental or physical health impairments [1,2,3,4]. It is unknown if sleep disturbances contribute to increased susceptibility to psychiatric illness.
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