Overnight Therapy: Treating PTSD Through Sleep Engineering

在CUBRIC的睡眠实验室里，这项研究的重点是睡眠工程作为PTSD的潜在治疗方法。这涉及到一种被称为目标记忆激活的技术，即在睡眠的某些阶段呈现的声音线索会引发特定记忆的激活。该项目研究了这对恐惧记忆的影响，使用一种简单的行为学习模型，经典条件反射，使用心理生理学测量方法，如皮肤电导和心率变异性，以及脑电图和功能磁共振成像来研究人们对恐惧和中性刺激的反应。它还将研究特质焦虑的个体差异的影响，以及这可能在多大程度上介导睡眠期间暗示的影响。

Within the Sleep Lab here at CUBRIC, the research focusses on sleep engineering as a potential treatment for PTSD. This involves a technique called targeted memory reactivation, where sound cues presented at certain stages of sleep elicit reactivations of specific memories. The project investigates the effects this has on fear memories, using a simple model of behavioural learning, classical conditioning.Using psychophysiological measures such as skin conductance and heart rate variability, as well as EEG and fMRI to study people's responses to fearful and neutral stimuli. It will also look at the effects of individual differences in trait anxiety and the extent to which this may mediate the effects of cueing during sleep.