Overnight neuronal plasticity and adaptation to emotional distress

Expressions such as ‘sleep on it’ refer to the resolution of distressing experiences across a night of sound sleep. Sleep is an active state during which the brain reorganizes the synaptic connections that form memories. This Perspective proposes a model of how sleep modifies emotional memory traces...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature reviews. Neuroscience 2024-04, Vol.25 (4), p.253-271
Main Authors: Cabrera, Yesenia, Koymans, Karin J., Poe, Gina R., Kessels, Helmut W., Van Someren, Eus J. W., Wassing, Rick
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
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692/700
Adaptation
Animal Genetics and Genomics
Behavioral Sciences
Biological Techniques
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Biomedicine
Emotions
Eye movements
Mental disorders
Neurobiology
Neuroplasticity
Neurosciences
Norepinephrine
NREM sleep
Perspective
Post traumatic stress disorder
REM sleep
Sleep
Sleep disorders
Synapses
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Summary:Expressions such as ‘sleep on it’ refer to the resolution of distressing experiences across a night of sound sleep. Sleep is an active state during which the brain reorganizes the synaptic connections that form memories. This Perspective proposes a model of how sleep modifies emotional memory traces. Sleep-dependent reorganization occurs through neurophysiological events in neurochemical contexts that determine the fates of synapses to grow, to survive or to be pruned. We discuss how low levels of acetylcholine during non-rapid eye movement sleep and low levels of noradrenaline during rapid eye movement sleep provide a unique window of opportunity for plasticity in neuronal representations of emotional memories that resolves the associated distress. We integrate sleep-facilitated adaptation over three levels: experience and behaviour, neuronal circuits, and synaptic events. The model generates testable hypotheses for how failed sleep-dependent adaptation to emotional distress is key to mental disorders, notably disorders of anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress with the common aetiology of insomnia. Sleep is an active state during which the synaptic connections that form memories are remodelled. In this Perspective, Wassing and colleagues discuss how failures in sleep-dependent adaptation to emotionally distressing experiences might be a key contributor to post-traumatic stress disorder and related conditions.
ISSN:1471-003X
1471-0048
1469-3178
DOI:10.1038/s41583-024-00799-w