SLEEP ACCELERATES MEMORY RE-STABILIZATION

SUSANNE DIEKELMANN; JULIA CARBONE; MARIA EUGENIA PEDREIRA; MALEN MOYANO; CECILIA FORCATO; JAN BORN

Congreso; XXXII CONGRESO ANUAL SAN 2017; 2017

Sociedad Argentina de Neurociencia (SAN)

Consolidated memories can be reactivated by the presentation of a memory-cue (reminder) returning to a labile state followed by a process of re-stabilization known as reconsolidation. Thus, if amnesic agents are presented inside the reconsolidation time window (when the memory is still labile) the memory is impaired. However, if they are presented outside (~6 hours after reminder presentation), it has no effect on re-stabilization. Sleep is known to support the consolidation of newly encoded memories and it is also suggested that sleep has a beneficial effect on reconsolidation. Here we ask whether sleep accelerates re-stabilization of consolidated memories protecting reactivated memories from interferences. Participants learned a list of non-sense syllable pairs on Day 1. On Day 2, they received a reminder and they were allowed to sleep a 90 min diurnal-nap or they stayed awake for the same period of time or for 10 hours. After that, they received an interference task (new list of syllables). We found that the memory performance was impaired only when the interference task was given 90 min after the reminder (inside the time window of reconsolidation). There was no impairment when it was given after 90 min sleep or 10 hours after the reminder presentation (outside the reconsolidation time window). This finding suggests that a short-nap after reactivation during wakefulness accelerates memory re-stabilization.