Sleep and Selective Emotional Memory Consolidation from Young Adulthood through Middle Age

人们一生中近三分之一的时间都在睡觉，越来越多的证据表明，睡眠的目的之一是加强白天形成的记忆，特别是如果这些记忆在情感上突出的话。然而，这些证据大多来自大学年龄研究参与者的数据，而这些数据并不能代表更广泛的人群。人们对中年的睡眠和记忆功能知之甚少。这项研究将研究睡眠如何对中年人的记忆产生选择性影响。记忆选择性的一个例子是，人们往往以中性信息为代价，非常好地记住情绪信息。这项研究建立在先前的发现之上，即睡眠在年轻人情绪记忆的选择性巩固中所起的作用。这个项目结合了脑电、功能磁共振成像和行为方法来研究睡眠的不同阶段和特征如何重新连接用于提取情绪记忆的神经回路；这种重新连接可能如何受到情绪事件第一次体验的方式的影响；以及这些过程是否随着年龄的不同而不同。这项研究将在两所大学提供教育和培训机会，并将通过地区性和全国性的外出活动来促进健康的衰老。睡眠可以促进复杂场景中情感成分的记忆，而对中性、背景因素的记忆没有好处。此外，睡眠优先地巩固吸引公众注意的信息，并在编码过程中激发生理唤醒反应。在提取过程中，基于睡眠的巩固的这些影响反映在边缘回路内的活动和连接性增强上。这个项目调查睡眠是否继续帮助35岁以上的成年人选择性地巩固情绪信息。如果是这样的话，情绪、大脑连通性、睡眠和记忆之间的相关性会随着年龄的增长保持稳定吗？如果年龄干扰了选择性的巩固，睡眠结构和/或编码相关处理的哪些变化对这种干扰最具预测性，这些变化在什么年龄开始发生？这个项目通过检查提取过程中涉及的神经回路，进一步表征了睡眠依赖记忆巩固的下游后果，fMRI将揭示年龄是否影响记忆提取过程中与睡眠相关的边缘活动和连接性的增强。这项研究将建立对中年睡眠和情绪记忆巩固的基础科学理解，并将为基于睡眠的干预措施的发展提供信息，以改善成年后的记忆力和情感功能。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

People spend nearly one-third of their lives sleeping, and growing evidence suggests that one purpose of sleep is to strengthen memories formed during the day, particularly if these memories are emotionally salient. However, the majority of this evidence stems from data on college-age research participants that are not representative of the broader population. Little is known about sleep and memory function in middle age. This research will examine how sleep contributes to selectivity effects in memory in middle-aged people. One example of memory selectivity is the tendency to remember emotional information extremely well, often at the expense of neutral information. This research builds on prior findings, of the role of sleep in selective consolidation of emotional memories in young adults. This project combines EEG, fMRI, and behavioral approaches to examine how different phases and features of sleep can re-wire neural circuits used to retrieve emotional memories; how such re-wiring may be influenced by the way an emotional event is first experienced; and whether such processes differ as a function of age. The research will provide educational and training opportunities at two universities, and will promote healthy aging through regional and national outreach.Sleep promotes memory for emotional components of complex scenes while conferring no benefit to memory for neutral, contextual elements. Moreover, sleep preferentially consolidates information that attracts overt attention and provokes a physiological arousal response during encoding. During retrieval, these effects of sleep-based consolidation are reflected in enhanced activity and connectivity within limbic circuitry. This project investigates whether sleep continues to aide in the selective consolidation of emotional information in adults over the age of 35. If so, do correlations between emotion, brain connectivity, sleep, and memory stay stable with age? If age disrupts selective consolidation, what changes in sleep architecture and/or encoding-related processing are most predictive of that disruption, and at what age do those changes begin to occur? This project further characterizes downstream consequences of sleep-dependent memory consolidation by examining neural circuitry involved during retrieval, fMRI will reveal whether age influences the sleep-related enhancement in limbic activity and connectivity during memory retrieval. This research will develop a foundational, basic-science understanding of sleep and emotional memory consolidation in middle age, and will inform development of sleep-based interventions to improve mnemonic and affective function as adults age.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.