Randomized trial reveals TMR enhances neutral memory in young adults, suggesting selective benefits for emotional processing.
Key Points
This study investigates whether targeted memory reactivation (TMR) during slow wave sleep enhances negative emotional memory consolidation in young adults.
Healthy young adults (N=72) were exposed to TMR with olfactory cues during slow wave sleep after learning picture-location pairs.
Participants completed two experiments: one with intermixed negative and neutral images (N=24), and another with images in separate blocks (N=48).
Memory recall was assessed after sleep without the presence of odors or feedback.
In experiment 1, TMR significantly enhanced recall for neutral stimuli (p=0.03) but not for negative stimuli.
Experiment 2 showed no significant effects of TMR on either negative or neutral memories.
Strong initial memory encoding correlated with greater cued recall benefits for neutral stimuli in experiment 1 (p=0.07) and was significant in experiment 2 (p=0.02).