Cerebral Protein Synthesis During Sleep and Memory Consolidation

在2012年筹资期间，我们解决了以下问题： 与沃尔特里德陆军研究所的同事(T.Balkin和D.Picchioni)合作，我们使用L-1-11Cleucine正电子发射断层扫描方法测量了同一受试者在正常清醒、睡眠剥夺和睡眠中连续三次扫描的RCP。这些研究将检验这样一种观点，即在睡眠期间蛋白质合成增加，以恢复大脑基础设施。受试者是年龄在18岁到28岁之间的健康男性和女性志愿者。到目前为止，我们有7名受试者的完整数据集，他们在第三次扫描中慢波睡眠的加权时间在30%到68%之间。我们测量了15个区域和整个大脑的RCP，初步结果表明，在睡眠期间，某些大脑区域的RCP有升高的趋势。 我们还在确定睡眠相关RCP的增加是否与睡眠相关的记忆改善有关。我们使用纹理辨别任务来评估学习和记忆。这项任务绩效的提高已被证明依赖于睡眠。因为纹理辨别任务是特定于视网膜的，所以在一个半球进行训练(由于对侧视野中的刺激)并不能提高另一个半球的表现。因此，我们确定了初级视觉皮质受训大脑半球RCP的变化，并以未受训大脑半球为对照。受试者为年龄在18岁到28岁之间的健康男性和女性。这项任务在早上进行，受试者在中午进行正电子发射断层扫描时被随机分为午睡组和不午睡组，晚上重新进行这项任务。任务的刺激总是在视野的下半部分，我们随机化受刺激的一侧(左或右)。我们假设，在午睡期间花大量时间在SWS中的受试者，将观察到训练后大脑半球RCP的增加。我们在六个受试者中的初步结果表明，初级视觉皮质中映射到刺激的部分的RCP确实增加了。

During the 2012 funding period, we addressed the following: In collaboration with our colleagues from the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (T.Balkin and D. Picchioni, we use the L-1-11Cleucine positron emission tomography method to measure rCPS in the same subject during three consecutive scans in normal wakefulness, sleep-deprived wakefulness, and sleep. These studies will test the idea that protein synthesis is elevated during sleep to restore brain infrastructure. Subjects are healthy male and female volunteers between the ages of 18 and 28 y. To date we have complete data sets on seven subjects who spent between 30-68 weighted % time in slow wave sleep during the third scan. We have measured rCPS in 15 regions and the brain as a whole, and preliminary results indicate trends for elevated rCPS during sleep in some brain regions. We are also determining whether sleep-dependent increases in rCPS are associated with sleep-dependent improvements in memory. We use the texture discrimination task to assess learning and memory. Improvement on performance of this task has been demonstrated to depend on sleep. Because the texture discrimination task is retinotopically specific, training in one hemisphere (due to stimuli in the contralateral visual field) does not improve performance in the opposite hemisphere. Therefore, we determine changes in rCPS in the trained hemisphere of the primary visual cortex and use the untrained hemisphere as a control. Subjects are healthy males and females between the ages of 18 and 28y. The task is administered in the morning, subjects are randomized to nap or no-nap groups during the positron emission tomography scan at midday, and the task is re-administered in the evening. The stimulus of the task is always in the lower half of the visual field and we randomize the stimulated side (left or right). We hypothesize that an increase in rCPS in the trained hemisphere will be observed in subjects who spent a significant time in SWS during the nap. Our preliminary results in six subjects indicate that rCPS is indeed increased in the part of primary visual cortex that maps to the stimulus.