Accentuating the Positive Memories for Sleep

CNS 2012 has more than 900 posters on a variety of cognitive neuroscience topics. Check out this recent press release that highlights just a couple of posters  –  on the effects of sleep on positive memories (including one being presented at Poster Session D tonight):

Sleep plays a powerful role in preserving our memories. But while recent research shows that wakefulness may cloud memories of negative or traumatic events, a new study has found that wakefulness also degrades positive memories. Sleep, it seems, protects positive memories just as it does negative ones, and that has important implications for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder.

“The study of how sleep helps us remember and process emotional information is still young,” says Alexis Chambers of the University of Notre Dame. Past work has focused on the role of negative memories for sleep, in particular how insomnia is a healthy biological response for people to reduce negative memories and emotions associated with a traumatic event.

Two new studies presented this week at a meeting of cognitive neuroscientists in Chicago are exploring the flip side: how sleep treats the positive. “Only if we investigate all the possibilities within this field will we ever fully understand the processes underlying our sleep, memory, and emotions,” Chambers says. ... Read full press release.

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Both studies – “Effects of Sleep on Memory and Reactivity for PositiveEmotional Pictures,” by Rebecca Spencer et al., and “LaughYourself to Sleep: The Role of Humor in the Investigation of Sleep’seffects on Positive Memory” by Alexis Chambers et al. – are being presented in posters at the 19th annual CNS meeting in Chicago.