But how do we process and store these emotional scenes so that they’re preserved more efficiently than other, more neutral memories?<\/p>\n In a new study published recently in Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience<\/i>, University of Notre Dame researchers Jessica Payne and Alexis Chambers found that people who experienced rapid eye movement (REM) sleep soon after being presented with an emotionally-charged negative scene\u2014a wrecked car on a street, for example\u2014had superior memory for the emotional object compared to subjects whose sleep was delayed for at least 16 hours<\/strong>. This increased memory for the emotional object corresponded with a diminished memory for the neutral background of the scene, such as the street on which the wrecked car was parked.<\/p>\n These results suggest that the sleeping brain preserves in long-term memory only those scenes that are emotionally salient and aid in adaptation.<\/p>\n “Our results suggest that REM sleep, which has long been thought to play a role in emotional processing and emotional memory, helps us selectively preserve in memory only what is most important and perhaps beneficial to survival,” says Payne, a Notre Dame assistant professor of psychology who specializes in sleep’s impact on memory, creativity and the ability to process new ideas.<\/p>\n We know that emotional events occupy a privileged position in our memories\u2014they shape our personalities, represent defeats and achievements, mark milestones in our lives and often drive anxiety and mood disorders<\/strong>.<\/p>\n This study shows that the sleeping brain doesn’t just consolidate all recently encountered information<\/strong>. It appears to select for consolidation only the most emotional part of the experience, and the evidence suggests that REM sleep critically modulates memory for highly arousing emotional information.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the University of Notre Dame press release by Susan Guibert via MedicalXpress: Witnessing a car wreck or encountering a poisonous snake are scenes that become etched in our memories…. Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,4,6],"tags":[42,12,362],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9343"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9343"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9499,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9343\/revisions\/9499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"sleep\"](\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/images\/blogpics\/man_sleeping.jpg\")
Witnessing a car wreck or encountering a poisonous snake are scenes that become etched in our memories.<\/strong><\/p>\n