REM Sleep, Safety Signal Learning, and Extinction Processes in PTSD

快速眼动睡眠、安全信号学习和 PTSD 中的消退过程

基本信息

批准号：
8978685
负责人：
Laura D Straus
金额：
$ 3.53万
依托单位：
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
财政年份：
2015
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2015-07-01 至 2016-06-30
项目状态：
已结题

项目摘要

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Approximately 5.2 million adults suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in a given year. PTSD is associated with a number of negative physical and mental health consequences. While evidence-based pharmacological and psychosocial interventions for PTSD have been developed within the last few decades, not all patients respond fully to treatment. Investigating the biological processes involved in the development and maintenance of PTSD as well as the mechanisms of treatment response will increase understanding of the disorder and aid in the development of effective interventions. Fear conditioning plays a crucial mechanistic role in PTSD, as patients with PTSD retain conditioned fear to cues associated with trauma long after the traumatic event has passed. Additionally, emerging evidence implicates deficits in safety learning in PTSD, as patients with PTSD are often unable to distinguish dangerous from safe environments. Extinction of conditioned fear is necessary for PTSD symptom reduction, either through the natural course of recovery or in response to exposure-based therapies for PTSD. In addition, it is crucial for patients to retain extinction over time as well as generalize extinction to a variety of settings ad cues in order to remain free of PTSD symptoms long-term. Our research group recently demonstrated an association between safety learning and Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep in healthy humans. The implications of this finding are particularly salient for patients with PTSD, because some of the most ubiquitous and distressing symptoms of PTSD are nightmares, which occur in REM sleep, and insomnia. Additionally, a growing body of research shows that sleep, particularly REM sleep, serves an important role in the acquisition, recall, and generalization of extinction memories in animal models and healthy humans. Nothing is known about the link between REM sleep and safety signal learning or extinction memory in clinical populations, though. This study will be the first to examine the relationship between safety signal learning, REM sleep, and extinction recall and generalization in PTSD patients. The specific aims of the proposal are: 1) determine if safety signal learning is related to subsequent REM sleep in patients with PTSD, and 2) determine if REM fragmentation is related to impaired a) extinction memory formation and b) extinction generalization, in patients with PTSD.

描述（由适用提供）：在给定的一年中，大约有520万成年人患有创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）。 PTSD与许多负面的身心健康后果有关。尽管在过去的几十年中已经开发了基于证据的PTSD的循证药物和社会心理干预措施，但并非所有患者都对治疗做出反应。研究参与PTSD开发和维持的生物学过程以及治疗反应的机制将增加对疾病的理解并有助于开发有效的干预措施。恐惧调节在PTSD中起着至关重要的机械作用，因为PTSD患者在创伤事件发生后很长一段时间内保留了与创伤相关的有条件的恐惧。此外，由于PTSD患者通常无法将危险与安全环境区分开来，因此新兴证据与PTSD的安全学习有关。通过自然的恢复过程或对基于暴露的PTSD疗法的响应，有条件恐惧的灭绝对于减少PTSD症状是必要的。此外，对于患者，随着时间的推移保留延伸以及将扩展到各种设置的广告线索至关重要，以保持长期无PTSD症状。我们的研究小组最近证明了安全学习与快速眼运动（REM）在健康人类中的联系。这一发现的含义对于PTSD患者尤其重要，因为PTSD的某些最普遍和令人痛苦的症状是噩梦，这在REM睡眠和失眠症中发生。此外，越来越多的研究表明，睡眠，尤其是REM睡眠，在动物模型和健康人类的扩展记忆的获取，回忆和概括中起着重要作用。但是，对于临床人群中REM睡眠与安全信号学习或扩展记忆之间的联系一无所知。这项研究将是第一个检查PTSD患者的安全信号学习，REM睡眠和扩展回忆和概括之间关系的关系。该提案的具体目的是：1）确定安全信号学习是否与PTSD患者的REM睡眠有关，以及2）确定REM片段化是否与受损的a）扩展记忆形成和b）PTSD患者的扩展概括。