0264 EFFECT OF ACUTE SLEEP DEPRIVATION ON COGNITIVE PERFORMANCE AND FEAR EXTINCTION RECALL

Abstract Introduction: Sleep loss has been associated with numerous poor health outcomes, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI). Both PTSD and sleep loss lead to cognitive deficits. This study explored the relationship between sleep loss, fear extinction recall and cognitive performance. Methods: Ninety-one healthy participants completed three consecutive nights in the sleep laboratory. After one baseline night, they were randomized to a night of normal sleep (NS, n =47) or total sleep deprivation (SD, n = 44). The following morning, all participants completed fear conditioning tasks, fear extinction tasks, and the Immediate Post-Concussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing (ImPACT) battery. Fear extinction recall was tested in the early evening on the same day. Neural correlates of fear extinction recall were assessed using fMRI blood-oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) responses in regions of interest (ROIs). Results: The SD group demonstrated higher BOLD activity in the amygdala, the dorsal ACC, the hippocampus, and the thalamus as compared to the NS group during early fear extinction recall. The SD group reported more subjective cognitive symptoms than the NS group (effect size = 0.73, p