<oai_dc:dc xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:oai_dc="http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc/ http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc.xsd">
  <dc:creator>Kleim B</dc:creator>
  <dc:creator>Wilhelm FH</dc:creator>
  <dc:creator>Temp L</dc:creator>
  <dc:creator>Margraf J</dc:creator>
  <dc:creator>Wiederhold BK</dc:creator>
  <dc:creator>Rasch B</dc:creator>
  <dc:date>2014</dc:date>
  <dc:description xmlns:ns0="xml" ns0:lang="en">BACKGROUND
Sleep benefits memory consolidation. Here, we tested the beneficial effect of sleep on memory consolidation following exposure psychotherapy of phobic anxiety.


METHOD
A total of 40 individuals afflicted with spider phobia according to DSM-IV underwent a one-session virtual reality exposure treatment and either slept for 90 min or stayed awake afterwards.


RESULTS
Sleep following exposure therapy compared with wakefulness led to better reductions in self-reported fear (p = 0.045, d = 0.47) and catastrophic spider-related cognitions (p = 0.026, d = 0.53) during approaching a live spider, both tested after 1 week. Both reductions were associated with greater percentages of stage 2 sleep.


CONCLUSIONS
Our results indicate that sleep following successful psychotherapy, such as exposure therapy, improves therapeutic effectiveness, possibly by strengthening new non-fearful memory traces established during therapy. These findings offer an important non-invasive alternative to recent attempts to facilitate therapeutic memory extinction and consolidation processes with pharmacological or behavioral interventions.</dc:description>
  <dc:format>application/pdf</dc:format>
  <dc:identifier>https://sonar.ch/global/documents/141645</dc:identifier>
  <dc:language>eng</dc:language>
  <dc:relation>info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1017/S0033291713001748</dc:relation>
  <dc:relation>info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/pmid/23842278</dc:relation>
  <dc:rights>info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess</dc:rights>
  <dc:source>Psychological medicine. - 2014</dc:source>
  <dc:subject xmlns:ns1="xml" ns1:lang="en">Adult</dc:subject>
  <dc:subject xmlns:ns2="xml" ns2:lang="en">Electroencephalography</dc:subject>
  <dc:subject xmlns:ns3="xml" ns3:lang="en">Female</dc:subject>
  <dc:subject xmlns:ns4="xml" ns4:lang="en">Humans</dc:subject>
  <dc:subject xmlns:ns5="xml" ns5:lang="en">Implosive Therapy</dc:subject>
  <dc:subject xmlns:ns6="xml" ns6:lang="en">Male</dc:subject>
  <dc:subject xmlns:ns7="xml" ns7:lang="en">Phobic Disorders</dc:subject>
  <dc:subject xmlns:ns8="xml" ns8:lang="en">Sleep</dc:subject>
  <dc:subject xmlns:ns9="xml" ns9:lang="en">Treatment Outcome</dc:subject>
  <dc:subject xmlns:ns10="xml" ns10:lang="en">Young Adult</dc:subject>
  <dc:title xmlns:ns11="xml" ns11:lang="en">Sleep enhances exposure therapy.</dc:title>
  <dc:type>http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_6501</dc:type>
</oai_dc:dc>