Sleep behaviour and memory consolidation in patients with disorders of consciousness

意识障碍患者的睡眠行为和记忆巩固

• 批准号: 274661900
• 负责人: Professor Dr. Boris Kotchoubey
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Institut für Medizinische Psychologie und Verhaltensneurobiologie
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 资助国家: 德国
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/274661900?language=en
• 关键词: Sleep; behaviour; memory; consolidation; patients

The presence of sleep-wakefulness cycles is a differential diagnostic criterion marking the transition from coma to Unresponsive Wakefulness Syndrome (UWS) and Minimally Conscious State (MCS). Because a positive effect of sleep on the consolidation of memory traces was found in numerous studies and the mechanisms of the effect are largely known, a question arises whether such beneficial effect of sleep on learning can also be demonstrated in UWS and MCS patients (and if yes, perhaps it can be used in these patients’ rehabilitation). However, to investigate this issue, we had first (1) to describe the physiological structure of sleep in UWS and MCS, as it strongly differs from that in healthy individuals, (2) to elaborate criteria for their sleep scoring, as the extant criteria cannot be applied without adjustment due to the abnormal sleep structure, and (3) to develop specific learning tasks, as the tasks standardly used in sleep/memory experiments cannot be applied in behaviorally non-responsive patients.All these aims have been attained in the first period of this project. Now, in the second phase we plan to test the hypothesis that sleep supports memory consolidation in UWS and MCS. In a within-subject design, patients will be presented three counterbalanced conditions:1 Sleep Condition: Learning Task => 5h interval with sleep => Task Retest2 Wakefulness Condition: Learning Task => 5h interval w/out sleep => Task Retest3 Control Condition: 5h period w/out sleep => Learning Task (no task before the 5h period)The control condition is necessary to disentangle the possible effect of memory consolidation from the effect of therapeutic intervention during wakefulness period. We expect significantly better task performance at retest as compared with the first task presentation in the Sleep Condition. Furthermore, this improvement is expected to correlate with specific sleep components (e.g., spindles) and with the patient’s neuropsychological state.

睡眠-觉醒周期的存在是一个鉴别诊断标准，标志着从昏迷到无反应觉醒综合征(UWS)和最低意识状态(MCS)的转变。由于许多研究都发现睡眠对巩固记忆痕迹有积极作用，而且这种作用的机制已基本为人所知，因此出现了一个问题，即睡眠对学习的这种有益效果是否也能在UWS和MCS患者中得到证明(如果是，或许它可以用于这些患者的康复)。然而，为了研究这一问题，我们首先(1)描述了UWS和MCS的睡眠生理结构，因为它与健康人的睡眠结构有很大的不同；(2)阐述了他们的睡眠评分标准，因为由于睡眠结构异常，现有的标准不能在不调整的情况下应用；(3)开发特定的学习任务，因为在睡眠/记忆实验中标准使用的任务不能应用于行为反应迟钝的患者。所有这些目标在本项目的第一阶段已经实现。现在，在第二阶段，我们计划测试睡眠支持UWS和MCS记忆巩固的假设。在受试者内部设计中，患者将被呈现三种平衡状态：1睡眠状态：学习任务=；5小时间隔，睡眠=任务保持2清醒状态：学习任务=5小时间隔，无睡眠=任务保留3对照条件：5小时周期，无睡眠=&gt；学习任务(5小时前无任务)控制条件是将记忆巩固的可能效果与觉醒期间的治疗干预效果分开所必需的。我们期望与睡眠状态下的第一次任务陈述相比，重测时的任务表现要好得多。此外，这种改善预计与特定的睡眠成分(例如，纺锤波)和患者的神经心理状态有关。