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. 2018 Feb 15;13(2):e0192837.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0192837. eCollection 2018.

Does napping enhance the effects of Cognitive Bias Modification-Appraisal training? An experimental study

Marcella L Woud  1 , Jan C Cwik  2 , Simon E Blackwell  1 , Birgit Kleim  3 , Emily A Holmes  4 , Dirk Adolph  1 , Hui Zhang  5 , Jürgen Margraf  1
Affiliations

Does napping enhance the effects of Cognitive Bias Modification-Appraisal training? An experimental study

Marcella L Woud et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is characterised by dysfunctional appraisals of the trauma and its consequences including one's own symptoms. Experimental studies have shown that Cognitive Bias Modification-Appraisal (CBM-App) training can reduce dysfunctional interpretations and analog trauma symptoms. One important question is how to enhance the effects of CBM-App. Following work suggesting that sleep has beneficial effects on consolidation processes and can thus improve learning, the present study investigated whether a brief period of sleep (i.e., a nap) enhances the effects of CBM-App. All participants watched a stressful movie as an analogue trauma induction. After that, participants received either positive or negative CBM-App training. Within each training, half of the participants then had a 90-minute nap or watched a neutral movie. Results showed that the CBM training induced training-congruent appraisals. Sleep did not enhance this effect. Participants who slept, however, experienced fewer intrusive memories of the analogue trauma, but this effect was independent of the CBM condition. These results provide valuable information about the effects of sleep during a 90-minute nap period on encoding of analogue trauma and emotional learning in the context of appraisal, and highlight the importance of sleep as a focus for continued research.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors MLW, JCC, SEB, BK, DA, HZ, and JM have declared that no competing interests exist. Author EAH declares the following: EAH is Associate Editor for Behaviour Research and Therapy and receives an honorarium; she is on the editorial boards of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and Psychological Science and receives no remuneration. EAH is on the Board of Trustees of the Charity “MQ; transforming mental health” and receives no remuneration for this role. EAH is a member of Clare Hall, Cambridge University and receives a food allowance. EAH has a co-authored book on Imagery in Cognitive Therapy (OUP, 2011), that receives royalties. EAH presents at clinical training workshops on mental imagery and CBT some of which include a fee. EAH is an Honorary Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Oxford, Department of Psychiatry and a Visiting Scientist at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge UK until 2018 and receives no remuneration for this Roles. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Flowchart procedure.
Note: STAI-S: State Trait Anxiety Inventory—State; PTCI: Posttraumatic Cognitions Inventory; ERT: Encoding Recognition Task; IES-R: Impact of Event Scale—Revised.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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