Sleep Spindles Favor Emotion Regulation Over Memory Consolidation of Stressors in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.

BACKGROUND: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a trauma-induced condition, characterized by intrusive memories and trauma-associated anxiety. Non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep spindles might play a crucial role in learning and consolidating declarative stressor information. However, sleep and possibly sleep spindles are also known to regulate anxiety, suggestive of a dual role for sleep spindles in the processing of stressors. Specifically, in individuals with high PTSD symptom burden, spindles might fail to regulate anxiety levels after exposure and instead might maladaptively consolidate stressor information. METHODS: To disentangle the role of spindles in declarative memory versus anxiety regulation after stressor exposure and to examine the role of PTSD in these processes, we measured nap sleep after a cohort of 45 trauma-exposed participants were exposed to laboratory stress. Participants (high vs. low PTSD symptoms) completed 2 visits: a stress visit involving exposure to negatively valent images before nap and a control visit. In both visits, sleep was monitored via electroencephalography. A stressor recall session occurred after the nap in the stress visit. RESULTS: Stage 2 NREM (NREM2) spindle rates were higher in stress versus control sleep, indicative of stress-induced changes in spindles. In participants with high PTSD symptoms, NREM2 spindle rates in stress sleep predicted poorer recall accuracy of stressor images relative to participants with low PTSD symptoms, while correlating with greater reduction in stressor-induced anxiety levels after sleep. CONCLUSIONS: Contrary to our expectations, although spindles are known to play a role in declarative memory processes, our findings highlight an important role for spindles in sleep-dependent anxiety regulation in PTSD.

Explicit and implicit bias among parents of sexual and gender minority youth.

Sexual and gender minority (SGM) youth are at disproportionate risk for poor mental health outcomes, in part due to experiences and expectations of anti-SGM bias including from their own parents. We examined explicit anti-SGM and implicit antisexual minority bias in parents of SGM youth and associations with parenting and parent and youth psychosocial functioning. Heterosexual/cisgender parents (N = 205, Mage = 46.9 years, SD = 8.5) of SGM youth (≤ 29 years old, Mage = 19.4, SD = 4.7) completed an online study including measures of explicit anti-SGM and implicit anti-SM bias, parental acceptance and psychological control, parent-child unfinished business (unresolved negative feelings related to their child's identity), parental depression and anxiety, and youth anxiety, depression, substance use, and exposure to bullying. In models including both explicit anti-SGM and implicit anti-SM bias as predictors of parent and youth outcomes, explicit bias was uniquely associated with lower parental acceptance and greater parental psychological control, parent-child unfinished business, parental anxiety and depression, and youth substance use and exposure to bullying, whereas implicit bias was uniquely associated with greater parent-child unfinished business and parental depression. Further, the combination of high levels of both explicit and implicit bias was associated with the highest levels of parent-child unfinished business, parental depression, and youth anxiety, depression, and exposure to bullying. Results suggest that both types of bias jointly contribute to parenting and parent and youth psychosocial functioning and can help identify families at greatest risk for maladjustment. Findings can inform the development of interventions designed to reduce anti-SGM bias in parents of SGM youth. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

The relationship of fear-potentiated startle and polysomnography-measured sleep in trauma-exposed men and women with and without PTSD: testing REM sleep effects and exploring the roles of an integrative measure of sleep, PTSD symptoms, and biological sex.

STUDY OBJECTIVES: Published research indicates that sleep is involved in emotional information processing. Using a fear-potentiated startle (FPS) and nap sleep protocol, we examined the relationship of emotional learning with REM sleep (REMS) in trauma-exposed participants. We also explored the roles of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, biological sex, and an integrative measure of polysomnography-measured (PSG) sleep in the learning-sleep relationship. METHODS: After an adaptation nap, participants (N = 46) completed two more visits (counterbalanced): a stress-condition visit, which included FPS conditioning procedures prior to a nap and assessment of learning retention and fear extinction training after the nap, and a control visit, which included a nap opportunity without stressful procedures. FPS conditioning included a "fear" visual stimulus paired with an air blast to the neck and a "safety" visual stimulus never paired with an air blast. Retention and extinction involved presentation of the visual stimuli without the air blast. Primary analyses examined the relationship between FPS responses pre- and post-sleep with stress-condition REMS duration, controlling for control-nap REMS duration. RESULTS: Higher safety learning predicted increased REMS and increased REMS predicted more rapid extinction learning. Similar relationships were observed with an integrative PSG sleep measure. They also showed unexpected effects of PTSD symptoms on learning and showed biological sex effects on learning-sleep relationships. CONCLUSIONS: Findings support evidence of a relationship between adaptive emotional learning and REMS. They underscore the importance of examining sex effects in sleep-learning relationships. They introduce an integrative PSG sleep measure with potential relevance to studies of sleep and subjective and biological outcomes.

Hippocampal subregion volume in high-risk offspring is associated with increases in depressive symptoms across the transition to adolescence.

BACKGROUND: The hippocampus has been implicated in the pathophysiology of depression. This study examined whether youth hippocampal subregion volumes were differentially associated with maternal depression history and youth's depressive symptoms across the transition to adolescence. METHODS: 74 preadolescent offspring (Mage=10.74+/-0.84 years) of mothers with (n = 33) and without a lifetime depression history (n = 41) completed a structural brain scan. Youth depressive symptoms were assessed with clinical interviews and mother- and youth-reports prior to the neuroimaging assessment at age 9 (Mage=9.08+/-0.29 years), at the neuroimaging assessment, and in early adolescence (Mage=12.56+/-0.40 years). RESULTS: Maternal depression was associated with preadolescent offspring's reduced bilateral hippocampal head volumes and increased left hippocampal body volume. Reduced bilateral head volumes were associated with offspring's increased concurrent depressive symptoms. Furthermore, reduced right hippocampal head volume mediated associations between maternal depression and increases in offspring depressive symptoms from age 9 to age 12. LIMITATIONS: This study included a modest-sized sample that was oversampled for early temperamental characteristics, one neuroimaging assessment, and no correction for multiple comparisons. CONCLUSIONS: Findings implicate reductions in hippocampal head volume in the intergenerational transmission of risk from parents to offspring.

Achieving abstraction: Generating far analogies promotes relational reasoning in children.

Analogical reasoning is essential for transfer by supporting recognition of relational similarity. However, not all analogies are created equal. The source and target can be similar (near), or quite different (far). Previous research suggests that close comparisons facilitate children's relational abstraction. On the other hand, evidence from adults indicates that the process of solving far analogies may be a more effective scaffold for transfer of a relational strategy. We explore whether engaging with far analogies similarly induces such a strategy in preschoolers. Children were provided with the opportunity to solve either a near or far spatial analogy using a pair of puzzle boxes that varied in perceptual similarity (Experiment 1), or to participate in a control task (Experiment 2). All groups were then presented with an ambiguous spatial reasoning task featuring both object and relational matches. We were interested in the relationship between near and far conditions and two effects: (a) children's tendency to spontaneously draw an analogy when solving the initial puzzle, and (b) their tendency to privilege relational matches over object matches in a subsequent, ambiguous task. Although children were more likely to spontaneously draw an analogy in the near condition, those who attempted the far analogy were more likely to privilege a relational match on the subsequent task. We argue that the process of solving a far analogy-regardless of a learner's spontaneous success in identifying the relation-contextualizes an otherwise ambiguous learning problem, making it easier for children to access and apply relational hypotheses. (PsycINFO Database Record

An Open-Label Study of Doxazosin Extended-Release for PTSD: Findings and Recommendations for Future Research on Doxazosin.

OBJECTIVE: This report presents findings from an eight-week, open-label study of doxazosin extended-release for nightmares, sleep disturbance, and overall clinical symptoms in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Recommendations for future studies of doxazosin are provided. METHOD: Fifteen male and female adults were enrolled. The primary endpoints were change in Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale total, nightmare, and sleep disturbance scores from pretreatment to end of treatment. Self-report data on PTSD, sleep quality, depression, and quality of life collected at three time points and sleep diary data collected daily were analyzed secondarily. RESULTS: Eight participants completed eight weeks of study treatment. Among completers, significant changes in nightmares and overall PTSD symptoms were found. Secondary analyses using data from completers and noncompleters demonstrated improvements in all secondary outcomes. Of the participants who dropped out of the study, four participants discontinued because of side effects, and three participants discontinued because of other barriers to study participation. CONCLUSIONS: These findings indicate that doxazosin may be of value for some individuals with PTSD but problematic for others. Alternative formulations of doxazosin, such as the immediate-release formulation, should be studied. Future research should examine moderators of treatment tolerability and treatment effects to best identify those who will or will not benefit from doxazosin.