ArticleNeurobiology of stress2018
REM sleep and safety signal learning in posttraumatic stress disorder: A preliminary study in military veterans.
Article in Neurobiology of stress, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers.
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Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 36 citations in OpenAlex.
- The Effect of Suvorexant on Fear Extinction Recall: A Double-Blind Randomised Controlled Pilot Trial in Healthy Individuals.Journal of sleep research · 2025Trial
- Treatment of comorbid sleep disorders and posttraumatic stress disorder in U.S. active duty military personnel: A pilot randomized clinical trial.Journal of traumatic stress · 2023Trial
- Sleep efficiency predicts improvements in fear extinction and PTSD symptoms during prolonged exposure for veterans with comorbid insomnia.Psychiatry research · 2023Trial
- Sleep disorder symptoms are associated with greater posttraumatic stress and anger symptoms in US Army service members seeking treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder.Journal of clinical sleep medicine : JCSM : official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine · 2022Trial
- A systematic review of spontaneous recovery in human fear conditioning.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2026Review
- Exploring the association between sleep and fear extinction learning in adolescents with anxiety and/or OCD: a study protocol.Sleep advances : a journal of the Sleep Research Society · 2025Article
- Sleep and psychiatric disorders: Bidirectional interactions and shared neurobiological mechanisms.PLOS mental health · 2025Review
- Acute sleep disruption reduces fear memories in male and female mice.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2024Article
- The role of objective sleep in implicit and explicit affect regulation: A comprehensive review.Neurobiology of stress · 2024Article
- Acute sleep deprivation reduces fear memories in male and female mice.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- REM disruption and REM Vagal Activity Predict Extinction Recall in Trauma-Exposed Individuals.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Polysomnographically mediated cognitive improvements in individuals with insomnia symptoms following continuous theta-burst stimulation of the default mode network.Frontiers in sleep · 2024Article
- Understanding nightmares after traumatic events in Detroit (UNiTED): prospective associations with interpersonal violence and posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2024Article
- Beta spectral power during sleep is associated with impaired recall of extinguished fear.Sleep · 2023Article
- Protocol for a randomized controlled study examining the role of rapid eye movement sleep in fear-related mechanisms: rapid eye movement fragmentation and fear inhibition in adults with insomnia disorders before and after cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia.Sleep advances : a journal of the Sleep Research Society · 2023Article
- The Impact of Sleep on Fear Extinction.Current topics in behavioral neurosciences · 2023Article
- The influence of sleep on fear extinction in trauma-related disorders.Neurobiology of stress · 2023Article
- Pre-deployment threat learning predicts increased risk for post-deployment insomnia: Evidence from the Marine Resiliency Study.Behaviour research and therapy · 2022Article
- Article
- Blocking the orexin system following therapeutic exposure promoted between session habituation, but not PTSD symptom reduction.Journal of psychiatric research · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundPosttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is associated with a number of negative physical and mental health consequences. Fear conditioning plays an important mechanistic role in PTSD, and PTSD patients also show deficits in safety signal learning. Sleep, particularly REM sleep, is linked to improved safety learning and extinction processes in animal models and healthy humans. No studies have examined the link between REM sleep and safety signal learning or extinction memory in clinical populations.
methodsThis study examined the relationship between REM sleep, safety signal learning, and extinction processes in veterans with PTSD (
resultsVeterans learned to differentiate the CS+ and the CS- on the first day of testing. Veterans who underwent safety learning more quickly on the first day of testing showed more efficient REM sleep that night (
conclusionTo our knowledge, this was the first study to examine the relationship between objective sleep and fear-potentiated startle performance in veterans with PTSD. Study methods were well tolerated by participants, supporting feasibility of the experimental design. Results indicated REM sleep was associated with both initial safety learning and subsequent safety recall. Taken together with previous studies in healthy controls, these preliminary results provide additional evidence suggesting REM sleep could play a mechanistic role in the maintenance of PTSD and thus identify a modifiable biological process to target in treatment of PTSD. These findings should be replicated in larger samples.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.