Age-Related Changes in Sleep-Dependent Emotional Memory

Not Applicable

• Conditions: Age; Sleep; Emotional Valence
• Interventions: Behavioral: Overnight sleep; Behavioral: Wake

• Registration Number: NCT04141722
• Lead Sponsor: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Brief Summary

Memory influences emotional well being. Research has shown that having a negative emotional bias contributes to both emotion dysregulation and depression. Conversely, reactivating positive memories has been shown to reduce stress and symptoms of depression. In young adults, sleep is widely implicated in emotional processing, including consolidation of emotional memories. Evidence suggests that aging is associated with changes in emotion, including a positive memory bias and enhanced emotional well-being. These changes have been termed the "age-related positivity effect." However, the influence of sleep on these measures has not been investigated in healthy older individuals. The objective of this research is to understand the role of sleep in emotional memory consolidation and emotional well-being across adulthood. We hypothesize that sleep contributes to the age-related positivity effect in memory and affect. Our alternative hypothesis is that age-related decreases in sleep are responsible for reduced emotional memory processing over healthy aging.

Detailed Description

Not available

Study Timeline

• Study Start: 2018-12-11
• Status Verified: 2019-10
• Study First Submitted: 2019-10-24
• Study First Submitted QC: 2019-10-24
• Last Update Submitted: 2019-10-24
• Study First Posted: 2019-10-28
• Last Update Posted: 2019-10-28
• Primary Completion: 2020-05-31
• Study Completion: 2020-05-31

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: UNKNOWN
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 80

Inclusion Criteria

• 18-30 or 50-80 years of age
• Have no history of a sleep disorder
• Have no history of neurological disease or injury
• Have no history of psychiatric illness (anxiety or mood disorder, schizophrenia, etc.)
• No history of chemotherapy
• Not be taking medications which effect sleep
• Habitually sleep more than 6 or more hours per night
• Be able to walk freely and independently
• Have normal to corrected-to-normal vision

Exclusion Criteria

Not provided

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: PARALLEL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Sleep	Overnight sleep	-
Wake	Wake	-

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Memory bias	12 hr delay between encoding and recognition test	Corrected recognition of positive versus negative pictures

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

University of Massachusetts, Amherst; 🇺🇸 Amherst, Massachusetts, United States