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Sleep aromatherapy curbs conditioned fear

Nature Neuroscience volume 16, pages 1510–1512 (2013)Cite this article

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We know that humans are capable of learning during sleep. Research now shows that they are also capable of unlearning during sleep, and in a way that alters the neural representation of a feared stimulus: re-exposure to an odor during slow-wave sleep promotes extinction of an aversive visual association learned in that odor context.

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Figure 1: Simplified illustration of the experimental protocol.

Marina Corral Spence

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. John T. Wixted is in the Department of Psychology, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA.,

    John T Wixted

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  1. John T Wixted
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Correspondence to John T Wixted.

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The author declares no competing financial interests.

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Wixted, J. Sleep aromatherapy curbs conditioned fear. Nat Neurosci 16, 1510–1512 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3556

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