Sleep and reactivation of emotional memories
03-02-2016 - 12:15
Seminar and meetings
Recent evidence suggests that reactivation of learning-related auditory or olfactory cues during sleep enhances memory consolidation for declarative spatial and verbal memory tasks. In the present study, we investigated whether targeted reactivation during a post-training afternoon nap enhances recall performance for a verbal material involving emotional components. Twenty-one young adults learned 36 unrelated word-pairs (WPs; 18 being neutral and 18 being negative) associated with an emotionally congruent sound. Participants were instructed to memorize the WPs and to ignore the sounds. After the learning session, they underwent an immediate recall session and were then allowed to have a 90 minutes nap. During the nap, half of the associated sounds (9 neutral and 9 negative) were replayed several times during sleep stages N2 and N3. Recall performance for all learned WPs was then tested. Amongst the participants for whom at least one auditory reactivation was achieved (N=13), the decrease in performance between learning and retrieval was significantly lower for cued than non-cued WP (respectively -3.8% vs -12.8% of recalled word pairs; p=.03). A trend towards better recall performance for neutral reactivated WPs was observed (+1.7%), in comparison with non-reactivated WPs (-12%; p=.078). Negative WPs did not benefit from reactivation (-9.4% for reactivated and -12.8% non-reactivated WPs; p=1). These results indicate that within-sleep auditory cueing benefits declarative memorization. Besides, these benefits might be more important for neutral WPs than for negative ones.
Médhi Gilson
UR2NF - Neuropsychology and Functional Neuroimaging Research Unit affiliated at CRCN - Centre de Recherches Cognition et Neurosciences and UNI - ULB Neurosciences Institute
CP191, Av F Roosevelt 50, Campus Solbosch,
Room Bertelson (DB10.233), Buiding D, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences
Floor number :10th
Bruxelles