The Role of Sleep in Mediating Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Psychological and/or physical trauma can result in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Commonly, PTSD presents with sleep disturbances. However, little is known about the contribution of sleep to the acquisition and maintenance of PTSD symptoms. The main goal of this proposal was to assess the contribution of sleep to the development of PTSD. Using a rodent model of PTSD called Single Prolonged Stress (SPS), we performed sleep deprivation experiments to determine if sleep loss prior to SPS exposure is sufficient to exaggerate fear-associated memory impairments. Additionally, we assessed the effects of post-trauma optogenetic sleep enhancement on fear-associated memory function. The proposed experiments have concluded and have resulted in 2 published peer-reviewed papers (see attachments). We found that sleep deprivation did not exaggerate trauma-induced fear-associated memory impairments and that post-trauma-sleep enhancement was sufficient to alleviate fear-associated memory impairments typically found following trauma exposure in rats.