The rem sleep memory consolidation hypothesis jerome m. Slowwave sleep, acetylcholine, and memory consolidation. The dualprocess hypothesis argued that rem sleep and nrem sleep act differently on memory traces, depending on the memory system they belong to. One of the strongest arguments against a role for sleep in declarative memory involves the demonstration that the marked suppression or elimination of rem sleep in subjects on antidepressant drugs or with brainstem lesions produces no detrimental effects on. Previous theoretical accounts have proposed a differential role of slowwave sleep sws, rapideyemovement rem sleep, and stage n2 sleep for different types of memories. The hypothesis of memory processing in sleep has always had to face criticism both from people working in the field of sleep, who predominantly consider that sleeping serves more basic bi. An example is the hypothesis that sws facilitates consolidation of declarative memory 51, whereas rem sleep facilitates consolidation of nondeclarative memory 51,52. Animal studies correlating changes in rem sleep parameters with learning have produced inconsistent results and are confounded by stress effects. The rem sleepmemory consolidation hypothesis researchgate. How aging affects sleepdependent memory consolidation. The active system consolidation hypothesis states that memories are.
The discovery of rem sleep in 1953 by university of chicago physiologist nathaniel kleitman shown at left participating in one of his experiments and phd student eugene aserinsky provided important. Animal studies correlating changes in rem sleep parameters with learning have produced. Sleep plays an important role in the consolidation of memory. Siegel it has been hypothesized that rem rapid eye movement sleep has an important role in memory consolidation. Taken together, whereas classical consolidation theory suggests that declarative information is stored in the hippocampus for a certain period and that information transfer to the neocortex occurs mainly during sleep, in particular during nonrapid eye movement rem sleep, novel data suggest a similar degree of consolidation during waking state. Dreams are the sole window to greatly diminished, in rem sleep. The formation and consolidation of conditioned fear memory is a fundamental. The sleep toforget, sleep toremember sfsr hypothesis states that the neurobiological environment provided by rapideye movement rem rich sleep decouples the content of an emotional memory from its attendant emotional arousal. This hypothesis builds on the proposal that sleep is involved in the. This has been most clearly shown in adults for procedural memory i. The first is evidence that learn ing causes an increase in rem. Two new studies provide support both for the theory that sleep is important for the consolidation.
Rem rapid eye movement sleep paralysed but brain v. The sleep torememberpart of hypothesis states that rem sleep is necessary or at least advantageous to consolidate emotional memories. Consolidation is distinguished into two specific processes, synaptic consolidation, which is synonymous with latephase longterm potentiation and occurs within the first few hours after learning, and systems consolidation, where. Declarative memory is important in school performance and consequent social functioning in adolescents.
Recent research suggests sleep spindlesspikes of neural activity that emerge during rem sleep might play a key role in helping people learn and remember how to perform physical tasks, such as swinging a golf club. The role of rem rapid eye movement sleep for memory consolidation has been discussed for a long time. The hypothesis has been around for some time that rem sleep contributes to memory consolidation, stimulated in. Specifically, we suggest that cortical slow oscillations, occurring within specific. In summary, there is some evidence in favor of the hypothesis that rem sleep fosters the consolidation of emotional memory. The rem sleepmemory consolidation hypothesis science. The hypothesis has been around for some time that rem sleep contributes to memory consolidation, stimulated in particular by the wakelike eeg activity during this sleep stage together with frequent reports of vivid dreams after awakening from rem sleep. There is also evidence for a role of sws in immune function and regulation. Sleepdependent memory consolidation and incremental. Behavioural studies numerous studies have confirmed the beneficial.
Evidence relevant to the rem sleep memory consolidation hypothesis is of three general types. Sleep, memory, and plasticity 141 possesses a set of physiological and neurochemical mechanisms that may contribute uniquely to memory consolidation. Moreover, some studies suggest that different stages of sleep support memory consolidation for different types of memory. Terms in this set 111 the key symptom of narcolepsy is.
Role of sleep in declarative memory consolidationdirect. The first, rapid eye movement or rem sleep, occurs in. We discuss several lines of evidence refuting the hypothesis that procedural or declarative memories are processedconsolidated in sleep. Findings support memory consolidation theory of rem sleep. For example the dual process hypothesis proposes that sws is beneficial for declarative memories, whereas rem sleep is important for consolidation of nondeclarative. Experiments that have found sleep necessary for consolidation tend to support slowwave sleep as the important part of the cycle, however rem sleep may be important for other types of memory processing. Memory categories in the same way that sleep cannot be considered homogeneous, the spectrum of memory categories believed to exist in the human brain, and the processes.
We propose that nrem and rem sleep have distinct and complementary contributions to the overall function of sleep. The physiology of sleep in infants archives of disease. Building upon data suggesting the importance of sleep in learning and memory, we test a hypothesis that sleep plays a role in protecting memories from catastrophic forgetting. High levels of cortisol, as are observed late at night and, typically in the context of rem sleep, disrupt normal hippocampal neocortical communication, thereby interfering with forms of memory consolidation dependent. Selective remsleep deprivation does not diminish emotional. Both object recognition memory and contextual fear memory were impaired. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools. Research has shown that nrem sleep is responsible for the consolidation of facts and episodes in contrast to rem sleep that consolidates more emotionally related aspects of memory. The case against memory consolidation in rem sleep. Walker center for sleep and cognition, department of psychiatry, harvard medical school, beth israel deaconess medical center efd 861. If sws does enable feedback of information to the neocortex from the hippocampus, what could be the role of rem sleep in memory consolidation. Our data support the hypothesis that chronic and high alcohol consumption negatively affects sleep and declarative memory consolidation during the first months of abstention. This sleep benefit reflects the consolidation of memories that takes place over sleep. Like memory consolidation, a role for sleep in adaptive forgetting has both historical.
This decoupling allows divergent attenuation and enhancement effects i. This offers the opportunity to further elucidate the causal role of these sleep stages for the consolidation and affective evaluation of emotional memories. It has been hypothesized that rem rapid eye movement sleep has an important role in memory consolidation. Download citation the rem sleepmemory consolidation hypothesis it has been hypothesized that rem rapid eye movement sleep has an important role. The effect of selective remsleep deprivation on the. Using another research strategy to provide support to the hypothesis that rem sleep is a substrate for memory consolidation, hars and hennevin 1987 performed a series of experiments in rats in which a cue associated with the learning was presented during subsequent paradoxical sleep bouts. Differential effects of nonrem and rem sleep on memory. The effects of sleep and memory are relatively unstudied in adolescents.
But with myriad stages of sleep, forms of memory and processes of memory encoding and consolidation, sorting out how sleep contributes to memory. The link between memory, sleep, and dreams becomes more significant in studies analyzing memory consolidation during sleep. The case against memory consolidation in rem sleep behavioral. This consolidation mechanism occurred in a critical time. Background to the hypothesis stages of sleep there are two major types of sleep. Biological systems have evolved a mechanism by which they can prevent catastrophic forgetting of old knowledge during new training and allow lifelong learning.
We finish by comparing two hypotheses that might explain sleep dependent memory consolidation on a mechanis tic level, that is, the synaptic homeostasis hypothesis and the active system consolidation hypothesis. Causal evidence for the role of rem sleep theta rhythm in. Memory consolidation is a category of processes that stabilize a memory trace after its initial acquisition. One of the 2 theories of memory consolidation is system consolidation, what is it. Rem sleep for consolidation of procedural and emotional. This commentary 1 counteracts misleading biases regarding the rem sleep memory consolidation theory, and 2 demonstrates how chaotic cerebral activation during sleep is an essential component of longterm memory storage processes.
We have proposed that the hormone cortisol plays an important role in controlling the state of memory systems during sleep. Frontiers the interaction of rem fragmentation and night. Between an abstention period of a few weeks and of several months no change in sleep parameters and nightly memory consolidation could be demonstrated, however. Sleep dependent memory consolidation robert stickgold 1 the concept of sleeping on a problem is familiar to most of us. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that nrem sleep is functionally linked with specializations of the amygdala, including perhaps. Based on evidence from neurophysiological and behavioral studies mainly in humans and rodents, we consider the formation of longterm memory during sleep as an active systems consolidation. Recent research has established that sleep is essential for memory consolidation in learning and academic performance of children and adults.
This hypothesis was tested by comparing the effects on story retention of rem deprivation against an s4 deprived control. Rapid eye movement sleep rem sleep or rems is a unique phase of sleep in mammals and birds, distinguishable by randomrapid movement of the eyes, accompanied with low muscle tone throughout the body, and the propensity of the sleeper to dream vividly. The hypothesis that insights into the amnesiac quality of sleep are pro sleep serves a role in memory consolidation would be vided by recent functional imaging studies in humans. Findings such as gais and borns, which suggest a critical role for sws in memory consolidation, raise further questions about the relationship between sws and rem sleep.
The hypothesis that sleep strengthens memories is con. Sleepdependent memory consolidation course neur 0193. The temporal stereotypic sequence of the two basic sleep stagesnonrapid eye movement nrem sleep and rapid eye movement rem sleep during the sleep cycle appears to be critical for proper memory consolidation. We present evidence disputing the hypothesis that memories are processed or consolidated in rem sleep. Here we test the hypothesis that sleep is involved in memory consolidation and learning processes, predicting that evolutionary increases in the relative size of mammalian neocortical, hippocampal, and amygdalar regions will be associated with increased durations of rem and nrem sleep. Mechanisms of systems memory consolidation during sleep. Humans with pharmacological and brain lesioninduced. Causal role of rapideyemovement sleep on successful memory. Whereas older research concentrated on the role of rapideyemovement rem sleep, recent work has revealed the importance of slowwave sleep sws for memory consolidation and also enlightened some of the underlying electrophysiological, neurochemical, and genetic mechanisms, as well as developmental aspects in these processes. One proposal referring to a specific function of rem sleep has been that it is necessary for, or at least conductive to, the progress of memory consolidation. Fragmentation of rapid eye movement and nonrapid eye.