Supporting data for "Unraveling the effects of memory reactivation on emotional memory"

While emotional memory is evolutionarily adaptive to threatening life events, excessive emotional memories contribute to mental health disorders and impair daily functioning. In Chapter 1, we introduced the consolidation and reconsolidation of emotional memory, and how the emotional memory could be potentially attenuated by memory reactivation. In Chapter 2, we conducted a meta-analysis to compare memory reactivation during wakefulness and sleep. Consolidated emotional memories can be potentially intervened by memory reactivation during wakefulness with the reconsolidation-based approaches and during sleep with targeted memory reactivation (TMR). In Chapter 3, we performed two behavioral experiments on the interplay of the reactivation of fear memory and eye movement. In the two independent experiments, we investigated whether post-reactivation eye movement reduced the return of fear in a 3-day classical conditioning paradigm. Experiment 1 examined the eye movement at standard speed (1.0 Hz) in interfering with non-reactivated fear memories. Experiment 2 examined the eye movement with standard speed and fast speed (1.2 Hz) in interfering with the reactivated fear memories. In Chapter 4, we summarized the key findings and discussed the potential implication of memory reactivation in modulating emotional memories in humans and its potential clinical applications.