Sleep Supports Memory of Odors in Adults but Not in Children

Sleep supports the consolidation of declarative memory in children and adults. However, it is unclear whether sleep improves odor memory in children as well as adults. Thirty healthy children (mean age of 10.6, ranging from 8-12 yrs.) and 30 healthy adults (mean age of 25.4, ranging from 20-30 yrs.)...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2015-09, Vol.10 (9), p.e0139069
Main Authors: Prehn-Kristensen, Alexander, Lotzkat, Kristin, Bauhofer, Eva, Wiesner, Christian D, Baving, Lioba
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Adults
Aroma compounds
Child
Child & adolescent psychiatry
Children
Children & youth
Coding
Cognitive ability
Consolidation
Familiarity
Gender differences
Group dynamics
Health aspects
Hippocampus (Brain)
Humans
Learning
Medicine
Memory
Memory - physiology
Neurosciences
Odor recognition
Odorants
Odors
Pediatrics
Physiological aspects
Psychotherapy
Sleep
Sleep - physiology
Sleep and wakefulness
Wakefulness
Young Adult
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Sleep supports the consolidation of declarative memory in children and adults. However, it is unclear whether sleep improves odor memory in children as well as adults. Thirty healthy children (mean age of 10.6, ranging from 8-12 yrs.) and 30 healthy adults (mean age of 25.4, ranging from 20-30 yrs.) participated in an incidental odor recognition paradigm. While learning of 10 target odorants took place in the evening and retrieval (10 target and 10 distractor odorants) the next morning in the sleep groups (adults: n = 15, children: n = 15), the time schedule was vice versa in the wake groups (n = 15 each). During encoding, adults rated odors as being more familiar. After the retention interval, adult participants of the sleep group recognized odors better than adults in the wake group. While children in the wake group showed memory performance comparable to the adult wake group, the children sleep group performed worse than adult and children wake groups. Correlations between memory performance and familiarity ratings during encoding indicate that pre-experiences might be critical in determining whether sleep improves or worsens memory consolidation.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0139069