Emotional trait and memory associates of sleep timing and quality

• In young-adult males, early sleep timers had more AM extinction-learning advantage.
• Early sleep timers showed better generalization of extinction memory.
• Extinction recall was greater with higher Sleep Efficiency.
• Anxiety predicted poor sleep and eveningness but not extinction learning or recall.
• Sleep–extinction interaction may allow trait anxiety to promote anxiety disorders.

Poor ability to remember the extinction of conditioned fear, elevated trait anxiety, and delayed or disrupted nocturnal sleep are reported in anxiety disorders. The current study examines the interrelationship of these factors in healthy young-adult males. Skin-conductance response was conditioned to two differently colored lamps. One color but not the other was then extinguished. After varying delays, both colors were presented to determine extinction recall and generalization. Questionnaires measured sleep quality, morningness–eveningness, neuroticism and trait anxiety. A subset produced a mean 7.0 nights of actigraphy and sleep diaries. Median split of mean sleep midpoint defined early- and late-“sleep timers”. Extinction was more rapidly learned in the morning than evening only in early timers who also better generalized extinction recall. Extinction recall was greater with higher sleep efficiency. Sleep efficiency and morningness were negatively associated with neuroticism and anxiety. However, neuroticism and anxiety did not predict extinction learning, recall or generalization. Therefore, neuroticism/anxiety and deficient fear extinction, although both associated with poor quality and late timing of sleep, are not directly associated with each other. Elevated trait anxiety, in addition to predisposing directly to anxiety disorders, may thus also indirectly promote such disorders by impairing sleep and, consequently, extinction memory.