Sleep’s Role for Enhancing Extinction Memory in Anxiety Disorders: Implications for Exposure Therapy

Purpose of Review: Sleep disturbances are common in anxiety disorders. Sleep is critical for extinction memory consolidation, a process central to exposure therapy. Here we review basic, clinical, and translational research to clarify sleep’s role in processing extinction memories, including in the context of exposure therapy. Recent Findings: Sleep plays a significant role in extinction memory retention. Poor sleep quality predicts worse anxiety disorder treatment outcomes. Studies in specific phobia and social anxiety disorder indicate that the memory consolidation effects of sleep can be leveraged to enhance the retention of extinction memories during exposure therapy. Whether targeted memory cuing during NREM and/or REM sleep following exposure may further facilitate this enhancing effect is unclear.