Harrington, Marcus Oliver, Ashton, Jennifer, Sankarasubramanian, Subbulakshmi et al. (2 more authors) (2020) Losing Control:Sleep Deprivation Impairs the Suppression of Unwanted Thoughts. Clinical Psychological Science.
Abstract
Unwanted memories often enter conscious awareness when we confront reminders. People vary widely in their talents at suppressing such memory intrusions; however, the factors that govern suppression ability are poorly understood. We tested the hypothesis that successful memory control requires sleep. Following overnight sleep or total sleep deprivation, participants attempted to suppress intrusions of emotionally negative and neutral scenes when confronted with reminders. The sleep-deprived group experienced significantly more intrusions (unsuccessful suppressions) than the sleep group. Deficient control over intrusive thoughts had consequences: whereas in rested participants suppression reduced behavioural and psychophysiological indices of negative affect for aversive memories, it had no such salutary effect for sleep-deprived participants. Our findings raise the possibility that sleep deprivation disrupts prefrontal control over medial temporal lobe structures that support memory and emotion. These data point to an important role of sleep disturbance in maintaining and exacerbating psychiatric conditions characterised by persistent, unwanted thoughts.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2020. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of York |
Academic Units: | The University of York > Faculty of Sciences (York) > Psychology (York) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number MEDICAL RESEARCH COUNCIL (MRC) MR/P020208/1 MEDICAL RESEARCH COUNCIL (MRC) UNSPECIFIED |
Depositing User: | Pure (York) |
Date Deposited: | 11 May 2020 15:40 |
Last Modified: | 17 Oct 2024 08:43 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1177/2167702620951511 |
Status: | Published |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1177/2167702620951511 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:160546 |