Perceptual Learning and Sleep

描述（由申请人提供）：越来越多的证据表明，睡眠促进并有利于感知学习。然而，这种促进作用的潜在机制在很大程度上是未知的。在睡眠过程中，有两种可能的加工类型可以解释促进行为：使用依赖加工和学习巩固加工。使用依赖性处理发生在睡眠期间的大脑机制中，通常在睡眠前清醒时使用。这种处理导致神经处理的一般变化，而不是专门为了学习而发生的。另一方面，学习巩固加工是专门为学习而工作的。使用依赖加工对促进行为是充分的还是学习巩固加工对促进行为是必要的，这两个问题存在很大的争议。由于尚未直接测试哪种模型是有效的，因此了解睡眠期间发生哪种类型的加工对于阐明睡眠促进感知学习的机制至关重要。我们在本提案中讨论这个问题。睡眠由不同的动态组成，例如在每次快速眼动（REM）和非快速眼动（NREM）睡眠中自发的大脑振荡的大量频带所反映的动态。这就提出了一种可能性，即在整个睡眠期间，只有一种类型的处理不一定会持续发生：学习巩固处理可能发生在某些皮层区域的某些频段上，而使用依赖处理可能发生在其他频段上。因此，我们将系统地检查学习巩固加工或使用依赖加工是否发生在每个快速眼动和非快速眼动睡眠的每个波段以及不同的大脑区域。为了测试学习巩固加工是否对促进睡眠期间的知觉学习是必要的，我们将比较睡眠期间的大脑时空激活模式，即在完成导致学习的任务后（学习范式）和在完成不导致学习的任务后（干扰范式）的大脑时空激活模式。为此，我们必须获得睡眠期间大脑活动的高度局部时空信息；我们将使用一种尖端的神经成像技术，将脑磁图（MEG）和脑电图（EEG）的精细时间信息与磁共振成像（MRI）的精细空间信息以及早期视觉区域的个体视网膜定位图相结合，以估计精确定位的皮质区域自发振荡活动的功率和相位信息。成像将同时进行多导睡眠图测量，以客观地识别睡眠阶段。成功的研究结果将为阐明视觉任务训练后睡眠期间视觉任务的知觉学习和视觉可塑性的改善提供重要的知识。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): A growing body of evidence suggests that sleep facilitates and is beneficial to perceptual learning. However, the underlying mechanism of this facilitatory action is largely unknown. There are two possible types of processing during sleep that may account for the facilitatory action: use-dependent processing and learning- consolidation processing. The use-dependent processing occurs during sleep in the brain mechanisms that are generally used during wakefulness prior to sleep. This processing leads to general changes of neural processing and does not occur specifically for the sake of learning. On the other hand, the learning- consolidation processing works specifically for learning. It is highly controversial concerning whether the use- dependent processing is sufficient for the facilitatory action or whether learning-consolidation processing is necessary for the facilitatory action. It is fundamentally important to know which type of processing occurs during sleep to clarify the mechanism of sleep facilitating perceptual learning, since it has not been directly tested which model is valid. We address this question in the present proposal. Sleep consists of different dynamics, such as those reflected by a multitude of frequency bands in spontaneous brain oscillations in each rapid eye movement (REM) and non-REM (NREM) sleep. This raises the possibility that only one type of processing does not necessarily occur consistently throughout the whole sleep period: the learning-consolidation processing might occur for some frequency bands in some cortical areas, while use-dependent processing might occur for others. Thus, we will systematically examine whether learning-consolidation processing or use-dependent processing occurs in each band in each REM and NREM sleep, and in different brain area(s). To test whether the learning-consolidation processing is necessary for facilitating perceptual learning during sleep, we will compare the spatio-temporal brain activation patterns during sleep that follows task performance that causes learning (learning paradigm) with those during sleep that follows task performance that does not cause learning (interference paradigm). For this purpose, we must obtain highly localized spatio- temporal information about brain activation during sleep; we will use a cutting-edge neuroimaging technique that combines fine temporal information from magnetoencephalography (MEG) and electroencephalography (EEG) with fine spatial information from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as well as individual retinotopic mapping in the early visual areas, to estimate the power and phase information of spontaneous oscillatory activities in the precisely localized cortical regions. Imaging will be conducted with concurrent polysomnography measurement to objectively identify sleep stages. Successful research results would provide significant knowledge to clarify how improvement of perceptual learning of a visual task and visual plasticity occurs during sleep after training of the task.