Reactivating Memories during Sleep by Odors: Odor Specificity and Associated Changes in Sleep Oscillations

Memories are reactivated during sleep. Re-exposure to olfactory cues during sleep triggers this reactivation and improves later recall performance. Here, we tested if the effects of odor-induced memory reactivations are odor-specific, that is, requiring the same odor during learning and subsequent s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of cognitive neuroscience 2014-08, Vol.26 (8), p.1806-1818
Main Authors: Rihm, Julia S., Diekelmann, Susanne, Born, Jan, Rasch, Björn
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Brain
Brain Waves - physiology
Cerebrum - physiology
Delta Rhythm - physiology
Electromyography
Female
Humans
Learning - physiology
Male
Memory
Mental Recall - physiology
Neurosciences
Odorants
Recall
Sleep
Sleep - physiology
Smell - physiology
Young Adult
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Summary:Memories are reactivated during sleep. Re-exposure to olfactory cues during sleep triggers this reactivation and improves later recall performance. Here, we tested if the effects of odor-induced memory reactivations are odor-specific, that is, requiring the same odor during learning and subsequent sleep. We also tested whether odor-induced memory reactivation affects oscillatory EEG activity during sleep, as a putative mechanism underlying memory processing during sleep. Participants learned a visuospatial memory task under the presence of an odor. During subsequent SWS, the same odor, a different odor, or an odorless vehicle was presented. We found that odor re-exposure during sleep significantly improves memory only when the same odor was presented again, whereas exposure to a new odor or the odorless vehicle had no effect. The memory-enhancing effect of the congruent odor was accompanied by significant increases in frontal delta (1.5–4.5 Hz) and parietal fast spindle (13.0–15.0 Hz) power as well as by an increased negative-to-positive slope of the frontal slow oscillation. Our results indicate that odor-induced memory reactivations are odor specific and trigger changes in slow-wave and spindle power possibly reflecting a bottom–up influence of hippocampal memory replay on cortical slow oscillations as well as thalamo-cortical sleep spindles.
ISSN:0898-929X
1530-8898
DOI:10.1162/jocn_a_00579