Aversive memories are long-lasting and prone to burden our emotional wellbeing and mental health. Yet, how to remedy the maladaptive effects of aversive memories remains elusive. Using memory reactivation and emotional updating manipulations, we investigated how positive and neutral emotion may update aversive memories for reconsolidation in humans. We found that positive updating after reactivation was equivalent to neutral updating in impairing true memories of a previous aversive event after a 12-hour wakeful delay, but induced more false memory. Moreover, additional 12-hour delay with overnight sleep did not further enlarge true memory differences, but attenuated the effect of reactivation and updating on false memory. Interestingly, the neutral rather than the positive updating reduced the emotional arousal of the aversive memory 24 h later. Our findings could serve as a reference for real-world therapeutic applications regarding how positive and neutral updating may reshape aversive memories, especially when taking wake- and sleep-filled reconsolidation into account.

厌恶的记忆是持久的，容易给我们的情绪健康和心理健康带来负担。然而，如何纠正厌恶记忆的适应不良影响仍然难以捉摸。使用记忆重新激活和情绪更新操作，我们研究了积极和中性情绪如何更新厌恶记忆以重新巩固人类。我们发现，重新激活后的积极更新相当于中性更新，在 12 小时的清醒延迟后削弱对先前厌恶事件的真实记忆，但会诱发更多的错误记忆。此外，额外的 12 小时延迟睡眠并没有进一步扩大真实记忆差异，但减弱了重新激活和更新对虚假记忆的影响。有趣的是，中性而不是积极的更新减少了 24 小时后厌恶记忆的情绪唤醒。