Formation and suppression of acoustic memories during human sleep

Sleep and memory are deeply related, but the nature of the neuroplastic processes induced by sleep remains unclear. Here, we report that memory traces can be both formed or suppressed during sleep, depending on sleep phase. We played samples of acoustic noise to sleeping human listeners. Repeated ex...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature communications 2017-08, Vol.8 (1), p.179-179, Article 179
Main Authors: Andrillon, Thomas, Pressnitzer, Daniel, Léger, Damien, Kouider, Sid
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
631/378/1385/519
631/378/2649/1723
631/477/2811
Acoustic Stimulation
Adult
Cognitive Sciences
Electroencephalography
Female
Humanities and Social Sciences
Humans
Learning - physiology
Life Sciences
Male
Memory - physiology
Memory Consolidation
multidisciplinary
Neurons and Cognition
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Sleep - physiology
Sleep, REM - physiology
Sound
Young Adult
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Summary:Sleep and memory are deeply related, but the nature of the neuroplastic processes induced by sleep remains unclear. Here, we report that memory traces can be both formed or suppressed during sleep, depending on sleep phase. We played samples of acoustic noise to sleeping human listeners. Repeated exposure to a novel noise during Rapid Eye Movements (REM) or light non-REM (NREM) sleep leads to improvements in behavioral performance upon awakening. Strikingly, the same exposure during deep NREM sleep leads to impaired performance upon awakening. Electroencephalographic markers of learning extracted during sleep confirm a dissociation between sleep facilitating memory formation (light NREM and REM sleep) and sleep suppressing learning (deep NREM sleep). We can trace these neural changes back to transient sleep events, such as spindles for memory facilitation and slow waves for suppression. Thus, highly selective memory processes are active during human sleep, with intertwined episodes of facilitative and suppressive plasticity. Though memory and sleep are related, it is still unclear whether new memories can be formed during sleep. Here, authors show that people could learn new sounds during REM or light non-REM sleep, but that learning was suppressed when sounds were played during deep NREM sleep.
ISSN:2041-1723
2041-1723
DOI:10.1038/s41467-017-00071-z