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September 2012 - present
Publications
Publications (72)
Memories are of the past but for the future, enabling individuals to implement intended plans and actions at the appropriate time. Prospective memory is the specific ability to remember and execute an intended behavior at some designated point in the future. Although sleep is well-known to benefit the consolidation of memories for past events, its...
Memory consolidation is a dynamic process. Reconsolidation theory assumes that reactivation during wakefulness transiently destabilizes memories, requiring them to reconsolidate in order to persist. Memory reactivation also occurs during slow-wave sleep (SWS) and is assumed to underlie the consolidating effect of sleep. Here, we tested whether the...
Sleep facilitates memory consolidation, which is assumed to rely on the reactivation of newly encoded memories orchestrated by the temporal interplay of slow oscillations (SO), fast spindles and ripples. SO as well as the number of spindles coupled to SO are more frequent during slow wave sleep (SWS) compared to lighter sleep stage 2 (S2). But, it...
Fear memories can be altered after acquisition by processes, such as fear memory consolidation or fear extinction, even without further exposure to the fear-eliciting stimuli, but factors contributing to these processes are not well understood. Sleep is known to consolidate, strengthen, and change newly acquired declarative and procedural memories....
Fear memories can be altered after acquisition by processes such as fear memory consolidation or fear extinction, even without further exposure to the fear-eliciting stimuli, but factors contributing to these processes are not well understood. Sleep is known to consolidate, strengthen and change newly acquired declarative and procedural memories. H...
The beneficial effects of sleep for memory consolidation are assumed to rely on the reactivation of memories in conjunction with the coordinated interplay of sleep rhythms like slow oscillations and spindles. Specifically, slow oscillations are assumed to provide the temporal frame for spindles to occur in the slow oscillations up‐states, enabling...
According to the active system consolidation theory, memory consolidation during sleep relies on the reactivation of newly encoded memory representations. This reactivation is orchestrated by the interplay of sleep slow oscillations, spindles, and theta, which are in turn modulated by certain neurotransmitters like GABA to enable long-lasting plast...
According to the active systems consolidation theory, memories undergo reactivation during sleep that can give rise to qualitative changes of the representations. These changes may generate new knowledge such as gaining insight into solutions for problem solving. targeted memory reactivation (TMR) uses learning-associated cues, such as sounds or od...
Reactivation by reminder cues labilizes memories during wakefulness, requiring reconsoli-dation to persist. In contrast, during sleep, cued reactivation seems to directly stabilize memories. In reconsolidation, incomplete reminders are more effective in reactivating memories than complete reminders by inducing a mismatch, i.e. a discrepancy between...
Background
Sleep-wakefulness cycles are an essential diagnostic criterion for disorders of consciousness (DOC), differentiating prolonged DOC from coma. Specific sleep features, like the presence of sleep spindles, are an important marker for the prognosis of recovery from DOC. Based on increasing evidence for a link between sleep and neuronal plas...
Healthy sleep, positive general affect, and the ability to regulate emotional experiences are fundamental for well‑being. In contrast, various mental disorders are associated with altered rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, negative affect, and diminished emotion regulation abilities. However, the neural processes mediating the relationship between the...
Healthy sleep, positive general affect, and the ability to regulate emotional experiences are fundamental for well-being. In contrast, various mental disorders are associated with altered rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, negative affect, and diminished emotion regulation abilities. However, the neural processes mediating the relationship between the...
Objectives: To quantify, on a reliable evaluation basis, the distribution of behavioral and neurophysiological sleep patterns in Disorders of Consciousness (DOC) over a 24h period while controlling for environmental factors (by recruiting a group of conscious tetraplegic patients who resided in the same hospital).
Methods: We evaluated the distribu...
Sleep supports the consolidation of newly encoded memories, leading to the strengthening, stabilization, and integration of new memories into long-term memory. These processes are assumed to rely on the reactivation (replay) of neuronal activation patterns elicited during learning. In this chapter, we discuss “cued memory reactivation” as an exciti...
Consolidated memories can return to a labile state upon presentation of a reminder, followed by a period of re-stabilization known as reconsolidation. This period can take several hours, and if an amnesic agent (e.g. new learning) is administered inside the time window of reconsolidation (when the memory is still labile) the memory is impaired, whe...
Rationale:
Sleep-dependent memory consolidation depends on the concerted reactivation of memories in the hippocampo-neocortical system. The communication of reactivated information from the hippocampus to the neocortex is assumed to be enabled by low levels of acetylcholine, particularly during slow-wave sleep (SWS). Recent studies suggest that th...
Humans are highly social animals who critically need to remember information from social episodes in order to successfully navigate future social interactions. We propose that such episodic memories about social encounters are processed during sleep, following the learning experience, with sleep abstracting and consolidating social gist knowledge (...
Sleep fosters the generation of explicit knowledge. Whether sleep also benefits implicit intuitive decisions about underlying patterns is unclear. We examined sleep's role in explicit and intuitive semantic coherence judgments. Participants encoded sets of three words and after a sleep or wake period were required to judge the potential convergence...
Sleep consolidates newly acquired motor skills, leading to improvements in performance after sleep. A study now finds that similar performance improvements following sleep can rely on different neural mechanisms depending on the properties of the learning task.
Memory consolidation during sleep is assumed to rely on the repeated reactivation of newly encoded memories particularly during slow wave sleep (SWS). It has been proposed that reactivated memories during sleep – like during wakefulness – undergo a labilisation process, enabling the strengthening and integration of new memories into pre-existing ne...
Sleep benefits the consolidation of individual episodic memories. In the long run, however, it may be more efficient to retain the abstract gist of single, related memories, which can be generalized to similar instances in the future. While episodic memory is enhanced after one night of sleep, effective gist abstraction is thought to require multip...
Sleep has been shown to facilitate the consolidation of prospective memory, which is the ability to execute intended actions at the appropriate time in the future. In a previous study, the sleep benefit for prospective memory was mainly expressed as a preservation of prospective memory performance under divided attention as compared to full attenti...
Sleep is known to support the consolidation of newly encoded and initially labile memories. Once consolidated, remote memories can return to a labile state upon reactivation and need to become reconsolidated in order to persist. Here we asked whether sleep also benefits the reconsolidation of remote memories after their reactivation and how reconso...
Pro-inflammatory cytokines can promote sleep and neuronal processes underlying memory formation. However, this has mainly been revealed in animal studies. In this double-blind, placebo-controlled within-subject designed study, we examined how changes in the balance between pro- and anti-inflammatory signalling affect sleep and sleep-associated memo...
Sleep consolidates newly acquired memories. Beyond stabilizing memories, sleep is thought to reorganize memory representations such that invariant structures, statistical regularities and even new explicit knowledge are extracted. Whereas increasing evidence suggests that the stabilization of memories during sleep can be facilitated by cueing with...
Viele versprechen sich von den Neurowissenschaften eine Verbesserung der geistigen Eigenschaften gesunder Menschen - das sogenannte »Neuroenhancement«. Dieser Band gibt einen umfassenden Überblick über den Diskussionsstand in unterschiedlichen wissenschaftlichen Disziplinen. Die Autorinnen und Autoren beschreiben nicht nur ein breites Spektrum unte...
ABSTRACT: Background. N2 sleep spindles have been frequently linked to sleep-dependent memory consolidation in healthy adults. Sleep spindles (9–15 Hz) increase during sleep after learning and correlate positively with the memory retention rate. Objectives. As memory consolidation is impaired, but not completely absent, in patients suffering from o...
Background
N2 sleep spindles have been frequently linked to sleep-dependent memory consolidation in healthy adults. Sleep spindles (9–15 Hz) increase during sleep after learning and correlate positively with the memory retention rate.
Objectives
As memory consolidation is impaired, but not completely absent, in patients suffering from obstructive s...
Like Lane et al., we believe that change in psychotherapy comes about by updating dysfunctional memories with new adaptive experiences. We suggest that sleep is essential to (re-)consolidate such corrective experiences. Sleep is well-known to strengthen and integrate new memories into pre-existing networks. Targeted sleep interventions might be pro...
The last decade has witnessed a spurt of new publications documenting sleep’s essential contribution to the brains ability to form lasting memories. For the declarative memory domain, slow wave sleep (the deepest sleep stage) has the greatest beneficial effect on the consolidation of memories acquired during preceding wakefulness. The finding that...
Sleep supports the consolidation of motor sequence memories, yet it remains unclear whether sleep stabilizes or actually enhances motor sequence performance. Here we assessed the time course of motor memory consolidation in humans, taking early boosts in performance into account and varying the time between training and sleep. Two groups of subject...
Pro-inflammatory cytokines like interleukin-1 beta (IL-1) are major players in the interaction between the immune system and the central nervous system. Various animal studies report a sleep-promoting effect of IL-1 leading to enhanced slow wave sleep (SWS). Moreover, this cytokine was shown to affect hippocampus-dependent memory. However, the role...
Memory reactivations in hippocampal brain areas are critically involved in memory consolidation processes during sleep. In particular, specific firing patterns of hippocampal place cells observed during learning are replayed during subsequent sleep and rest in rodents. In humans, experimentally inducing hippocampal memory reactivations during slow-...
Allan Hobson proposes a unique and highly inspiring model in which he composes a protoconsciousness during REM sleep by merging the physiological processes of REM sleep with introspections and formal analyses of dreaming. His “dream consciousness theory” serves a bouquet of new ideas on how dream-consciousness and wake-consciousness might be interr...
Sleep is essential for effective cognitive functioning. Loosing even a few hours of sleep can have detrimental effects on a wide variety of cognitive processes such as attention, language, reasoning, decision making, learning and memory. While sleep is necessary to ensure normal healthy cognitive functioning, it can also enhance performance beyond...
Pregnant women, both before and after childbirth, frequently experience memory deficits and disrupted sleep. In the present study we assessed the relationship between false memory generation and fragmented sleep during pregnancy and motherhood. We tested 178 pregnant women and 58 female non-pregnant childless controls, during pregnancy (15(th) to 3...
Memories are reactivated during sleep. Reexposure to olfactory cues during sleep triggers this reactivation and improves later recall performance. Here, we tested if the effects of odor-induced memory reactivations are odor specific, that is, requiring the same odor during learning and subsequent sleep. We also tested whether odor-induced memory re...
Sleep and circadian rhythms have a crucial function in health, cognition, and daytime functioning. Various bodily and cognitive processes show a strong modulation by homeostatic and circadian sleep-wake rhythms and disruptions to these rhythms can produce health problems, cognitive dysfunctions, and mood disorders. In this Special Issue, we present...
Sleep is well known to facilitate the consolidation of newly acquired memories. Although this effect has been extensively studied in the past two decades, there are still a number of issues that remain unresolved. In this article, some of the open questions in the field of sleep and memory research are discussed. Particularly, the psychological con...
As well as consolidating memory, sleep has been proposed to serve a second important function for memory, i.e. to free capacities for the learning of new information during succeeding wakefulness. The slow wave activity (SWA) that is a hallmark of slow wave sleep could be involved in both functions. Here, we aimed to demonstrate a causative role fo...
Sleep supports the consolidation of new memories. However, this effect has mainly been shown for memories of past events. Here we investigated the role of sleep for the implementation of intentions for the future.
Subjects were instructed on a plan that had to be executed after a delay of 2 days. After plan instruction, subjects were either allowed...
Sleep regulates immune functions. We asked whether sleep can influence immunological memory formation. Twenty-seven healthy men were vaccinated against hepatitis A three times, at weeks 0, 8, and 16 with conditions of sleep versus wakefulness in the following night. Sleep was recorded polysomnographically, and hormone levels were assessed throughou...
The concept of 'repression' dates back to Freud, assuming that undesirable memories can become suppressed and that dreams ease repression by permitting these memories to be reinstated. Here, we followed this idea adopting the 'directed forgetting' approach of experimental psychology. The voluntary suppression of unwanted memories results in impaire...
There is increasing evidence indicating that slow wave sleep (SWS) supports memory consolidation. This effect may in part originate from phasic noradrinergic (NE) activity occurring during SWS in the presence of tonically lowered NE levels. Here, we examined whether NE supports the consolidation of amygdala-dependent emotional memory during SWS.
In...
The brain encodes huge amounts of information, but only a small fraction is stored for a longer time. There is now compelling evidence that the long-term storage of memories preferentially occurs during sleep. However, the factors mediating the selectivity of sleep-associated memory consolidation are poorly understood. Here, we show that the mere e...
„Tapfer hielt er bis zu seinem unglaublichen Ende bei sich, dass die Zeit des Schlafs Verschwendung und folglich Sünde sei,
ihm dereinst im Fegefeuer aufgerechnet werde, denn im Schlaf sei man tot, jedenfalls lebe man nicht wirklich. Nicht von ungefähr
vergliche ein altes Wort Schlaf und Tod mit Brüdern.“ Dieses Zitat aus Robert Schneiders bekannte...
Retrieving a memory is a reconstructive process in which encoded representations can be changed and distorted. This process sometimes leads to the generation of "false memories," that is, when people remember events that, in fact, never happened. Such false memories typically represent a kind of "gist" being extracted from single encountered events...
Memory is subject to dynamic changes, sometimes giving rise to the formation of false memories due to biased processes of consolidation or retrieval. Sleep is known to benefit memory consolidation through an active reorganization of representations whereas acute sleep deprivation impairs retrieval functions. Here, we investigated whether sleep afte...
We recently proposed a comprehensive framework for sleep-dependent memory consolidation suggesting that, during slow-wave sleep (SWS), memory representations are transferred from a temporary to a long-term store and thereby undergo reorganization in a process of system consolidation (The memory function of sleep. Nature Rev. Neurosci. 11, 114–126 (...
Sleep has been identified as a state that optimizes the consolidation of newly acquired information in memory, depending on the specific conditions of learning and the timing of sleep. Consolidation during sleep promotes both quantitative and qualitative changes of memory representations. Through specific patterns of neuromodulatory activity and el...
Sleep benefits memory consolidation. The reviewed studies indicate that this consolidating effect is not revealed under all circumstances but is linked to specific psychological conditions. Specifically, we discuss to what extent memory consolidation during sleep depends on the type of learning materials, type of learning and retrieval test, differ...
Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep has been considered important for consolidation of memories, particularly of skills. Contrary to expectations, we found that REM sleep suppression by administration of selective serotonin or norepinephrine re-uptake inhibitors after training did not impair consolidation of skills or word-pairs in healthy men but rathe...
People sometimes claim with high confidence to remember events that in fact never happened, typically due to strong semantic associations with actually encoded events. Sleep is known to provide optimal neurobiological conditions for consolidation of memories for long-term storage, whereas sleep deprivation acutely impairs retrieval of stored memori...
Sleep supports the consolidation of memory in adults. Childhood is a period hallmarked by huge demands of brain plasticity as well as great amounts of efficient sleep. Whether sleep supports memory consolidation in children as in adults is unclear. We compared effects of nocturnal sleep (versus daytime wakefulness) on consolidation of declarative (...
Memories for motor skills become resistant to interference during wakefulness within a few hours. A new study shows that such stabilization occurs faster during sleep, possibly by activating a different type of consolidation.
A beneficial effect of sleep after learning, compared to wakefulness, on memory formation has been shown in many studies using a variety of tasks. However, none of these studies has specifically addressed recognition memory for faces so far. The recognition of familiar faces, together with the extraction of emotional information from facial express...
