ArticleSleep2026
Experimentally induced REM sleep fragmentation affects psychophysiological habituation to emotional stimuli.
Article in Sleep, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
12 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Rapid eye movement sleep is believed to reduce physiological reactivity to emotional experiences. While rapid eye movement sleep fragmentation has been associated with maladaptive emotional processing in clinical and animal models, its causal role has not been experimentally isolated in healthy humans. In this study, we tested whether selectively fragmenting rapid eye movement sleep impairs overnight psychophysiological habituation in healthy individuals, aiming to identify the cortical dynamics involved. Seventeen participants (mean age ± SD, 23.18 ± 3.94, 14 females) completed two counterbalanced conditions (fragmentation and control) each encompassing a baseline assessment of emotional memory/reactivity, a nocturnal polysomnography with or without wrist-applied vibrotactile stimulation during rapid eye movement sleep, a post-sleep emotional memory/reactivity reassessment, and a 48-h follow-up evaluation. Emotional memory was evaluated using an old/new paradigm, while emotional reactivity was assessed through self-report and physiological measures (electrodermal activity and heart rate deceleration-heart rate deceleration). The stimulation procedure elicited cortical arousal during rapid eye movement sleep, increasing rapid eye movement sleep fragmentation without altering total sleep time, sleep efficiency, and wake after sleep onset. Stimulations reliably induced a distinct cortical arousal signature, characterized by increased higher EEG frequencies (alpha, sigma, beta, gamma). rapid eye movement sleep fragmentation compromised heart rate deceleration habituation to emotional stimuli at both post-sleep assessments without impacting electrodermal response, self-report evaluation, and recognition memory. Crucially, the degree of impaired cardiac habituation at both timepoints was strongly predicted by the magnitude of stimulation-induced alpha power over parieto-occipital regions. These findings indicated the importance of unperturbed rapid eye movement sleep continuity for proper psychophysiological habituation to emotional events, suggesting alpha intrusions as a potential cortical correlate of impaired habituation.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.