{"id":123982,"date":"2025-01-25T10:03:43","date_gmt":"2025-01-25T10:03:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/sleep-deprivation-may-stop-us-from-blocking-unwanted-memories-medical-news-today\/"},"modified":"2025-01-25T10:03:43","modified_gmt":"2025-01-25T10:03:43","slug":"sleep-deprivation-may-stop-us-from-blocking-unwanted-memories-medical-news-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/sleep-deprivation-may-stop-us-from-blocking-unwanted-memories-medical-news-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Sleep deprivation may stop us from 'blocking' unwanted memories – Medical News Today"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is becoming increasingly obvious that sleep plays a range of crucial roles in helping our bodies maintain various aspects of health, including brain health and mental health.
A new study from the Universities of York and East Anglia in the United Kingdom \u2014 whose findings appear in PNAS<\/a><\/em> \u2014 now looks at an even more intriguing aspect of the relationship between sleep, the brain, and mental health.
The study found that disrupted sleep affected the brain\u2019s ability to restrict intrusive memories, which could contribute to conditions including anxiety, depression, and even post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)<\/a>.
Study co-author Marcus Harrington, PhD<\/a>, a lecturer in psychology at the University of East Anglia who specializes in sleep, memory, emotion, and mental health, told Medical News Today<\/em> that he and his colleagues conducted this study because they were keen to find out more about why some people might find it more difficult to overcome traumatic experiences than others.
He told us:
\u201cMost people will have a traumatic experience at some point in their lives, but only a small proportion will go on to develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Why do some people recover from trauma effectively whereas others are left with debilitating symptoms? Answering this challenging question is a major goal in clinical psychology. One factor that we know increases the likelihood of developing PTSD in the aftermath of trauma is poor sleep. However, we don\u2019t know what it is about sleep loss that seems to make people vulnerable to PTSD and other mental health problems.\u201d
For this study, the researchers recruited 85 healthy adults ages 18\u201330 years \u2014 of whom 30 were male and the rest female \u2014 whom they asked to spend one night in the sleep laboratory. Around half of the cohort (43 participants) had to stay awake all night, while the rest had a healthy night\u2019s sleep.
To see how sleep or the lack thereof might influence the brain\u2019s ability to suppress unwanted memories and thoughts, the researchers had previously asked the participants to undertake an exercise: They had to look at pictures of faces, some of which appeared in the context of negative scenes, such as a car crash.
Following the night of sleep or sleep disruption, all participants had to either recall the scene associated with a specific face or suppress the memory of a scene with a negative association. The researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)<\/a> scans to investigate the participants\u2019 brain activity at this time.
When asked to recall unpleasant memories, it became apparent that participants who had undergone a sleepless night had less activation of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex<\/a><\/hl-trusted-source> region of the brain, which is associated with emotional regulation and the inhibition of intrusive thoughts.
By contrast, the well-rested participants had higher activity in this brain region and less activity in the hippocampus<\/a>, which is <\/span>associated with memory recall.
In their study paper, the researchers explained that this suggested that well-rested participants were better able to restrict unwanted memories\u2014a function called \u201cmemory suppression.\u201d Conversely, this function was impaired in the brains of participants who had spent a sleepless night.<\/strong>
The fact that sleep deprivation thus appears to affect the ability to suppress intrusive memories and possibly other intrusive thoughts could have important implications for mood disorders like depression and anxiety and conditions like PTSD, they further suggested.
\u201cWe have known for a long time that when people are sleep-deprived, they\u2019re less effective at inhibiting external actions, such as pressing a button,\u201d Harrington told MNT<\/em>, and the current study also confirmed that sleep deprivation negatively affects our control over unwanted memories.
However, the researcher added, \u201cunderstanding how sleep deprivation affects the subjective experience of trying to keep unwanted memories from intruding into conscious awareness is only half the battle \u2014 we were also interested in understanding what goes on in people\u2019s brains when they try to suppress memories under conditions of sleep loss.\u201d
\u201cThat\u2019s why we used functional MRI to take images of our participants\u2019 brains as they engaged in memory suppression. The additional insight offered by neuroimaging allows us to create a more holistic picture of how poor sleep might pave the way to mental health problems,\u201d he went on to say.
Commenting on the study results, Caroline Horton, PhD<\/a>, professor of sleep and cognition at Bishop Grosseteste University in Lincoln, U.K., who was not involved in this research, told MNT<\/em>:
\u201cThis is a high-quality study that will, I suspect, initiate a wave of experimental work exploring links between sleep and inhibition, which is very welcome. The experimental methods used in the study are analogies for more pervasive mental health disorders, and serve as a useful model for thinking about how sleep can help to keep unwanted or damaging emotional material at bay, but does not yet demonstrate precisely how disturbed sleep over longer timeframes can impact on specific mental health conditions, such as PTSD.\u201d
There is plenty of research concerned with the ways in which a good night\u2019s sleep helps support our memory function<\/a>, due to concerns around cognitive decline risk in an increasingly aging population.
There is also accumulating evidence<\/a> that getting more deep sleep is important in supporting the formation of new memories.
However, memory suppression also plays a key role in health, particularly mental health.
\u201cIn our daily lives, we can often be reminded of unpleasant past experiences. For example, somebody might see a red car driving too quickly and it causes them to automatically retrieve memories about a car accident they were once involved in,\u201d Harrington explained to MNT<\/em>.
\u201cWhen this happens, people often engage in memory suppression, which allows them to keep the unwanted memories about the car accident out of mind. If the memory suppression function fails, intrusive thoughts can flood conscious awareness, which may be distracting, distressing, or even debilitating,\u201d he said, speaking of this brain function\u2019s short-term benefits.<\/strong>
He also told us that \u201cmemory suppression can also have lasting benefits\u201d when it comes to mental health in the long run.
The researcher went on to note that \u201csuppressing an unwanted memory weakens its underlying memory trace, reducing the likelihood of that memory intruding into consciousness again in the future.\u201d
\u201cMoreover, repeatedly suppressing emotionally negative memories can make those memories seem less unpleasant when they are revisited in the future. These far-reaching benefits of memory suppression are believed to make it a fundamental component of healthy emotion regulation.\u201d
\u2014 Marcus Harrington, PhD
\u201cWe know a great deal about the integral role that sleep plays in regulating our emotions, ensuring that our responses are proportionate to stimuli and the environment, keeping general anxieties at bay, and allowing us to cope in a wide range of situations,\u201d said Horton.
\u201cMoreover, sleep disturbances are associated with every psychiatric syndrome that you could think of,\u201d she pointed out.
Studies from the past year have added to the evidence surrounding the relationship between mental health and sleep.
One large study<\/a>, for instance, found that people who go to bed late, past 1 a.m., are more likely to experience mental ill health, including conditions such as depression<\/a> and anxiety<\/a>.
While the study did not prove a causal relationship, its authors suggested that later bedtimes may result in less rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep<\/a> \u2014 the type of deep sleep within which most dreams occur, and which helps maintain the brain healthy.
In the current study, the researchers further found that participants who had spent more time in REM sleep later had better activation of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which more effectively supported memory suppression.
\u201cThe dorsolateral prefrontal context, the area of the brain demonstrated to be impaired following a night of sleep deprivation, is interestingly an area that has been shown to be relatively inactive during REM sleep relative to wake,\u201d said Horton.
\u201cWork from my own lab<\/a> has demonstrated that, during dreaming, we experience a range of heightened emotional experiences, likely as a result of this area of the brain effectively turning its activity down, that ordinarily prevents us from thinking about such emotions. Taken together, it is plausible that we experience these emotional scenarios during sleep, when it is safe to do so, leading to a well-regulated ability to engage that inhibition action when we are awake.\u201d
\u2013 Caroline Horton, PhD
\u201cWhen we don\u2019t have the ability to experience those emotional experiences during sleep, then we do so when we are awake \u2013 hence the intrusions of memories and experiences that are pervasive, emotional, and likely highly unpleasant,\u201d Horton added.
The issue that arises is that people with diagnosed mental health conditions \u2014 such as anxiety and depression \u2014 tend to have more difficulty in obtaining uninterrupted sleep. And, since insomnia can be a symptom<\/a> of poor mental health, this could reinforce a vicious cycle that disrupts crucial brain functions, such as that of memory suppression.
\u201cThe relationship between disturbed sleep and mental ill health is almost certainly cyclical,\u201d Horton told us. \u201cIt is very difficult to establish definitively whether disturbed sleep causes maladaptive emotional responses, or vice versa, but a range of research approaches indicate a bidirectional relationship, whereby poor sleep may worsen existing maladaptive thinking, and maladaptive thinking leads to disturbed sleep.\u201d
\u201c[P]oor sleep leads to intrusive thoughts that may further obstruct the sleep needed to support recovery, creating a vicious cycle of distressing thought intrusions and chronic sleeplessness, which could plausibly culminate in mental health problems,\u201d Harrington further explained.
The good news is that restoring deep sleep could help redress some of these issues:
\u201cAn important finding in our study was that rapid eye movement (REM) sleep was associated with the overnight restoration of the brain mechanisms that drive memory suppression. Sleep researchers are currently developing strategies to enhance REM sleep using methods such as auditory brain stimulation.\u201d
\u2014 Marcus Harrington, PhD
Harrington said this could improve therapeutic approaches in the future: \u201cFuture studies could investigate whether directly manipulating REM sleep could help people to keep intrusive thoughts out of mind, and if so, whether it can be used in the treatment of mental health problems associated with intrusive thoughts.\u201d
However, he also cautioned that, for now, \u201cthis line of research is still in its infancy \u2014 patient studies are required to bridge the gap between our research and clinical practice.\u201d
What is most important, Harrington emphasized, is actively working to improve our sleep hygiene<\/a> now, in order to prevent becoming seriously affected by the disruptions poor sleep causes in our brains.<\/strong>
\u201cAnother possible application of our research is in the prevention of mental health problems,\u201d he told MNT<\/em>. \u201cRecent studies from Professor Michael Anderson\u2019s lab at the Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge suggests that thought suppression is a skill<\/a> that can be trained, and that such training can benefit mental health.\u201d
\u201cIt would be useful to find out if such training works in people with insomnia. If it does, thought suppression training could potentially be used as a therapeutic tool targeted at preventing people with sleep issues from developing mental health problems.\u201d
\u2014 Marcus Harrington, PhD
Horton emphasized that \u201csleeping well is a lifelong habit and, as such, will take a little time to learn and perfect.\u201d She thus advised that we should not feel discouraged if we do not see immediate results when we set out to improve our sleep.
\u201c[I]t\u2019s important to appreciate that great sleep might not appear on night one, and even the best sleepers have bad nights sometimes,\u201d she told us.
With that in mind, the first step toward achieving better sleep is to pay attention to our sleep routines and plan our bedtimes according to our individual needs, the expert advised:
\u201cMake a note of when you yawn, for instance. Are you regularly feeling sleepy at 10.30 p.m.? If so, it would make sense to be in bed by that time! Plan, as best you can, some regular bed- and rise- times, allowing at least 8 hours in bed, which should allow you time to sleep for around 7.5 hours, plus a little more for getting to sleep and getting up. Of course, those times can be adjusted depending on how long you take to get to sleep.\u201d
Then, she added, \u201cThere are endless so-called sleep hygiene recommendations available, including refraining from caffeine and\/or alcohol, not eating within 3 hours of going to bed, and ensuring your bedroom sleep environment is conducive to relaxing and switching off.\u201d
\u201cAll of these are evidence-based and can help individuals,\u201d said Horton, \u201cbut alone, they may only have a small impact on sleep quality.\u201d
The key is, once again, \u201ccustomizing\u201d our habits to our individual requirements, and making small, gradual changes: \u201cThink about your own needs and, rather than making lots of changes at once, try to make small changes and see how they go. We are more likely to stick with a new behaviour if it can align with our values and existing habits.\u201d<\/strong>
\u201cFinally, consistency is key,\u201d Horton stressed. \u201cIt may be tempting to stay up late on a Friday night and sleep in at weekends, but that confuses your body and brain, meaning it will be extra difficult to rise early in the week.\u201d
\u201cEvidence<\/a> shows that catching up at weekends does not compensate for the damage caused by sleeping too little in the week, and it also prevents a regular routine from developing,\u201d she concluded.
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