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The role of rapid eye movement sleep in sensory and memory reactivation processes

par Sifuentes-Ortega, Rebeca
Président du jury Gevers, Wim
Promoteur Peigneux, Philippe
Publication Non publié, 2023-12-04

Thèse de doctorat

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Résumé :

During sleep, the brain is not entirely disconnected from the environment, showing preserved basic auditory processing of external information. However, the extent to which higher-level perceptual processes can take place during distinct sleep states is still a matter of research. Additionally, it is widely accepted that sleep is important for memory consolidation. In particular, the spontaneous and repeated reactivation of recently acquired memories taking place during non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep is thought to be a key mechanism of memory consolidation and integration into long-term stores. Over the past decade, research using the targeted memory reactivation (TMR) technique has shown that presenting learning-related cues during NREM sleep can improve memory retrieval. Despite the cyclical nature of normal nocturnal sleep, consisting of alternating periods of NREM and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, the relationship between REM sleep and memory reactivation processes remains poorly understood. Our project aimed at investigating the extent of high-level perceptual processing during NREM and REM sleep. A second aim was to investigate, at the behavioural and neural levels, the role of REM sleep in memory consolidation processes induced by the reactivation of previously learned memories using TMR. In a first study, we found that electroencephalography (EEG) frequency-tagged responses to the meter of musical rhythms are diminished during REM sleep and suppressed during stages 2 and 3 of NREM sleep, as compared to wakefulness. In a second study we found little support for a beneficial effect of REM sleep taking place after NREM TMR on memory for novel word associations. Neural findings tentatively suggest a complex interplay between NREM and subsequent REM sleep in processing reactivated memories, which may be contingent upon the level of prior knowledge involved in the learned associations. In a third study, no evidence was found to support the hypothesis of differential processing of reactivated memories when TMR was performed during stage 3 of NREM sleep compared to REM sleep.