Figure 1

Summary of the experimental procedure. Three groups of subjects spent two consecutive nights in the sleep laboratory. During both nights, polysomnography was recorded. In the second night, two groups were woken up as soon as they entered REM sleep or SWS (groups REMS and SWSS, respectively), while the control group was not woken up (CTL). The grey arrows indicate onsets of REM sleep and SWS upon which the respective groups were awakened. After waking up on the second morning, all subjects performed two sessions of the Cyberball game while inside the fMRI scanner⁹¹. The game included a total of eight blocks, with four inclusion (INC) and four exclusion (EXC) blocks. During inclusion, subjects received the ball continuously throughout the block, while during exclusion, the other two players stopped throwing the ball to the participant soon after the beginning of the block, effectively excluding the participant from the game. Additionally, during the first four blocks (half INC, half EXC), subjects simply performed the task (VIEW), while during the second four blocks (half INC, half EXC) they were instructed to use cognitive reappraisal (CRA) to regulate their emotions.