Cognition, Behavior, and Memory
Author: María Laura Gorosito | Email: lauragorosito658@gmail.com
M. Laura Gorosito1°, Matías Pretel1°, Nerea L. Herrero1°, Laura Kaczer2°, Cecilia Forcato1°
1° Laboratorio de Sueño y Memoria, Depto. de Ciencias de la Vida, Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires (ITBA)
2° Laboratorio de Lenguaje y Cognición. Departamento de Fisiología, Biología Molecular y Celular, FCEN, Universidad de Buenos Aires
During Non Rapid Eye Movement (NREM) sleep, spontaneous reactivations occur in the neural circuits involved in encoding information acquired while awake facilitating the transfer and redistribution of information between brain areas, favoring memory consolidation. Reactivations during REM sleep have been linked to the integration of new memories into pre-existing neural networks. From a neuroscience perspective, dreams reflect memory processes. This study aimed to assess whether the learning of new words (word-definition-image) could induce dreams, and to determine if the amount of dream content related to the learned task is associated with the consolidation of this memory. To achieve this, 15 subjects learned a new-word task before sleep (Day 1), followed by a serial awakening protocol. They were tested on Day 2 and had uninterrupted sleep. On Day 3 memory reactivation took place, followed by 4 awakenings. A final testing was conducted on Day 4, with dream reports collected after each awakening.
Results show that 55% of dreams had elements of the learned task, proving that the protocol was effective in inducing task-related dream content. Furthermore, we found a negative correlation between the amount of dream content after reactivation and the number of correctly recalled words and definitions. This result could be explained by the reactivation-induced labilization of that memory trace, which along with awakenings, could be disrupting its restabilization and integration.