Grant: Project Grant

Distinct patterns of brain activity occur during sleep which have been linked to memory consolidation, a process by which temporarily stored information is converted into long-term skills and memories. Our current understanding has been pieced together from correlational studies, animal research, and invasive recording in patients undergoing intracranial recordings prior to surgery, but our view of these important processes is far from complete. We will use precisely-timed, non-invasive auditory stimulation combined with whole-brain neuroimaging to study the processes of memory consolidation. We test the hypothesis that each type of neural event has a distinct role in consolidating memories for motor procedures and knowledge/facts, and for their combination in real-life learning, which is generally a mixture of the two. This knowledge will allow us a better fundamental understanding of sleep's role in memory. It will have important implications for aging, in which changes in sleep patterns are related to memory loss, and in many clinical conditions and medical treatments which affect sleep.