Monday, January 10, 2011

Sleep Deprivation May Help Treat PTSD

Sleep deprivation may be therapeutic for some people with post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) and other anxiety disorders, a new study suggests.
Previous research has shown that sleep plays a crucial role in the consolidation of memories, and that the development of fear-related memories is an important part of anxiety disorders such as PTSD.
In this study, researchers investigated what happened when they deprived people of sleep after they had seen disturbing images. Healthy volunteers were shown video clips of both safe driving and traffic crashes. Half of the participants were then deprived of sleep while the others got a normal night's sleep.

Robert Preidt

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