Learning-Dependent Increases in Sleep Spindle Density

Declarative memory consolidation is enhanced by sleep. In the investigation of underlying mechanisms, mainly rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and slow-wave sleep have been considered. More recently, sleep stage 2 with sleep spindles as a most prominent feature has received increasing attention. Specifically, in rats hippocampal ripples were found to occur in temporal proximity to cortical sleep spindles, indicating an information transfer between the hippocampus and neocortex, which is supposed to underlie the consolidation of declarative memories during sleep. This study in humans looks at the changes in EEG activity during nocturnal sleep after extensive training on a declarative learning task, as compared…

• DF
  Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft