Cited by 196Memory and Neural MechanismsSleep and Wakefulness ResearchMemory Processes and Influences

Sleep Promotes Generalization of Extinction of Conditioned Fear

Open access
Edward Franz Pace-Schott, Mohammed R. Milad, Scott P. Orr, Scott L. Rauch, Robert Stickgold, Roger K. Pitman·2009·Sleep

Abstract

STUDY OBJECTIVE: To examine the effects of sleep on fear conditioning, extinction, extinction recall, and generalization of extinction recall in healthy humans. DESIGN: During the Conditioning phase, a mild, 0.5-sec shock followed conditioned stimuli (CS+s), which consisted of 2 differently colored lamps. A third lamp color was interspersed but never reinforced (CS-). Immediately after Conditioning, one CS+ was extinguished (CS+E) by presentation without shocks (Extinction phase). The other CS+ went unextinguished (CS+U). Twelve hours later, following continuous normal daytime waking (Wake group, N=27) or an equal interval containing a normal night's sleep (Sleep group, N=26), conditioned responses (CRs) to all CSs were measured (Extinction Recall phase). It was hypothesized that the Sleep versus Wake group would show greater extinction recall and/or generalization of extinction recall from the CS+E to the CS+U. SETTING: Academic medical center. SUBJECTS: Paid normal volunteers. MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS: Square-root transformed skin conductance response (SCR) measured conditioned responding. During Extinction Recall, the Group (Wake or Sleep) x CS+ Type (CS+E or CS+U) interaction was significant (P = 0.04). SCRs to the CS+E did not differ between groups, whereas SCRs to the CS+U were significantly smaller in the Sleep group. Additionally, SCRs were significantly larger to the CS+U than CS+E in the Wake but not the Sleep group. CONCLUSIONS: After sleep, extinction memory generalized from an extinguished conditioned stimulus to a similarly conditioned but unextinguished stimulus. Clinically, adequate sleep may promote generalization of extinction memory from specific stimuli treated during exposure therapy to similar stimuli later encountered in vivo.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.5665/sleep/32.1.19

Cites

26 of 26 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Sleep promotes generalization of extinction learning.

    “In the context of fear learning, sleep promoted the generalization of extinction learning (878), increased intersession habituation to emotional stimuli (879), and in both humans and rodents, the deprivation of REM sleep impaired fear extinction (421, 1084, 1133).”

    From About Sleep's Role in Memory (2013) · cites this paper as [878]

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 35

  1. Vervliet B, Vansteenwegen D, Eelen P. Generalization of extin- guished skin conductance responding in human fear conditioning. Learn Mem 2004;11:555-8.
  2. Milad MR, Wright CI, Orr SP, Pitman RK, Quirk GJ, Rauch SL. Recall of fear extinction in humans activates the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and hippocampus in concert. Biol Psychiatry 2007;62:446-54.
  3. Morgan PT, Pace-Schott EF, Sahul ZH, Coric V, Stickgold R, Malison RT. Sleep, sleep-dependent procedural learning and vigilance in chronic cocaine users: Evidence for occult insomnia. Drug Alcohol Depend 2006;82:238-49.
  4. Johns MW. Sleepiness in different situations measured by the Ep- worth Sleepiness Scale. Sleep 1994;17:703-10.
  5. Milad MR, Goldstein JM, Orr SP, et al. Fear conditioning and ex- tinction: influence of sex and menstrual cycle in healthy humans. Behav. Neurosci. 2006;120(6):1196-203.
  6. Pace-Schott EF, Stickgold R, Muzur A, et al. Sleep quality dete- riorates over a binge--abstinence cycle in chronic smoked cocaine users. Psychopharmacology (Berl). 2005;179:873-83.
  7. Milad MR, Orr SP, Pitman RK, Rauch SL. Context modulation of memory for fear extinction in humans. Psychophysiology 2005;42:456-64.
  8. Orr SP, Lasko NB, Shalev AY, Pitman RK. Physiologic responses to loud tones in Vietnam veterans with posttraumatic stress disor- der. J Abnorm Psychol 1995;104:75-82.
  9. Ellenbogen JM, Hu PT, Payne JD, Titone D, Walker MP. Human relational memory requires time and sleep. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2007;104:7723-8.
  10. Vervliet B, Vansteenwegen D, Eelen P. Generalization gradients for acquisition and extinction in human contingency learning. Exp Psychol 2006;53:132-42.
  11. Ledgerwood L, Richardson R, Cranney J. D-cycloserine facili- tates extinction of learned fear: effects on reacquisition and gen- eralized extinction. Biol Psychiatry 2005;57:841-7.
  12. Germain A, Buysse DJ, Nofzinger E. Sleep-specific mechanisms underlying posttraumatic stress disorder: integrative review and neurobiological hypotheses. Sleep Med Rev 2008;12:185-95.
  13. Hu P, Stylos-Allan M, Walker MP. Sleep facilitates consolidation of emotional declarative memory. Psychol Sci 2006;17:891-8.
  14. Holland P, Lewis PA. Emotional memory: selective enhancement by sleep. Curr Biol 2007;17:R179-81.
  15. Ji J, Maren S. Hippocampal involvement in contextual modula- tion of fear extinction. Hippocampus 2007;17:749-58.
  16. Ruskin DN, Liu C, Dunn KE, Bazan NG, LaHoste GJ. Sleep deprivation impairs hippocampus-mediated contextual learning but not amygdala-mediated cued learning in rats. Eur J Neurosci 2004;19:3121-4.
  17. Graves LA, Heller EA, Pack AI, Abel T. Sleep deprivation selec- tively impairs memory consolidation for contextual fear condi- tioning. Learn Mem 2003;10:168-76.
  18. Fu J, Li P, Ouyang X, et al. Rapid eye movement sleep depriva- tion selectively impairs recall of fear extinction in hippocampus- independent tasks in rats. Neuroscience 2007;144:1186-92.
  19. Smith C. Sleep states and memory processes. Behav Brain Res 1995;69:137-45.
  20. Smith C. Sleep states and memory processes in humans: pro- cedural versus declarative memory systems. Sleep Med Rev 2001;5:491-506.
  21. Graves L, Pack A, Abel T. Sleep and memory: a molecular per- spective. Trends Neurosci 2001;24:237-43.
  22. Blechert J, Michael T, Vriends N, Margraf J, Wilhelm FH. Fear conditioning in posttraumatic stress disorder: evidence for de- layed extinction of autonomic, experiential, and behavioural re- sponses. Behav Res Ther 2007;45:2019-33.
  23. Kobayashi I, Boarts JM, Delahanty DL. Polysomnographically measured sleep abnormalities in PTSD: a meta-analytic review. Psychophysiology 2007;44:660-9.
  24. Mellman TA, Pigeon WR, Nowell PD, Nolan B. Relationships between REM sleep findings and PTSD symptoms during the early aftermath of trauma. J Trauma Stress 2007;20:893-901.
  25. Wellman LL, Yang L, Tang X, Sanford LD. Contextual fear ex- tinction ameliorates sleep disturbances found following fear con- ditioning in rats. Sleep 2008;31:1035-42.
  26. Ehlers A, Hackmann A, Steil R, Clohessy S, Wenninger K, Win- ter H. The nature of intrusive memories after trauma: the warning signal hypothesis. Behav Res Ther 2002;40:995-1002.
  27. Wessa M, Flor H. Failure of extinction of fear responses in post- traumatic stress disorder: evidence from second-order condition- ing. Am J Psychiatry 2007;164:1684-92.
  28. Vogel GW, Buffenstein A, Minter K, Hennessey A. Drug effects on REM sleep and on endogenous depression. Neurosci Biobe- hav Rev 1990;14:49-63.
  29. Stickgold R, James L, Hobson JA. Visual discrimination learning requires sleep after training. Nat Neurosci 2000;3:1237-8.
  30. Pagano RR, Lovely RH. Diurnal cycle and ACTH facilitation of shuttlebox avoidance. Physiol Behav 1972;8:721-3.
  31. Y, Nakamura S. Selective rapid eye movement sleep deprivation impairs the maintenance of long-term potentiation in the rat hip- pocampus. Eur J Neurosci 2006;24:243-8.
  32. Milad MR, Quinn BT, Pitman RK, Orr SP, Fischl B, Rauch SL. Thickness of ventromedial prefrontal cortex in humans is correlated with extinction memory. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2005;102:10706-11.
  33. Maquet P, Ruby P, Maudoux A, et al. Human cognition during REM sleep and the activity profile within frontal and parietal cor- tices: a reappraisal of functional neuroimaging data. Prog Brain Res 2005;150:219-27.
  34. Vansteenwegen D, Vervliet B, Iberico C, Baeyens F, Van den Bergh O, Hermans D. The repeated confrontation with video- tapes of spiders in multiple contexts attenuates renewal of fear in spider-anxious students. Behav Res Ther 2007;45:1169-79.
  35. Foa E, Hembree E, Rothbaum B. Prolonged exposure therapy for PTSD. Emotional processing of traumatic experiences. Therapist Guide: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Pace-Schott, E. F., Milad, M. R., Orr, S. P., Rauch, S. L., Stickgold, R., & Pitman, R. K.
Affiliations
  • Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (US)
  • Harvard University (US)
Corresponding author
Edward Franz Pace-Schott
Venue
Sleep
Published
2009-01-01
Volume
32
Issue
1
Pages
19-26
ISSN
  • 0161-8105 (ISSN-L)
  • 1550-9109
OpenAlex
W126997740
Cited by
196
References
26
Citations by year
2026: 1 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 11 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 15 · 2017: 19 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 24 · 2014: 18 · 2013: 21 · 2012: 12
FWCI
6.47
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • SLEEP (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
  • National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH048832)
  • National Institute on Drug Abuse (R01DA11744, R01DA011744)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Sleep and Wakefulness Research
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory Processes and Influences
Keywords
fear extinction, memory extinction, fear conditioning, extinction recall, skin conductance response, exposure therapy, sleep versus wakefulness
MeSH terms
Adolescent, Adult, Arousal, Association Learning, Conditioning, Classical, Electroshock, Extinction, Psychological, Fear, Female, Galvanic Skin Response, Generalization, Stimulus, Humans, Male, Mental Recall, Sleep, Wakefulness, Young Adult

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review