Perceptual Learning and Sleep

描述(由申请者提供)：越来越多的证据表明，睡眠有助于并有益于知觉学习。然而，这一促进行动的基本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易化行为：依赖使用的加工和学习巩固加工。这种依赖使用的处理过程发生在睡眠期间，大脑机制通常在睡眠前的清醒状态下使用。这种处理导致神经处理的一般变化，并不是专门为了学习而发生的。另一方面，学习-巩固处理专门为学习工作。关于依赖使用的加工对于促进行为是否足够，或者学习-巩固加工是否对于促进行为是必要的，存在着很大的争议。要阐明睡眠促进知觉学习的机制，最重要的是要知道睡眠过程中发生了哪种类型的加工，因为还没有直接测试哪个模型有效。我们在本提案中解决了这个问题。睡眠由不同的动态组成，例如在每一次快速眼动(REM)和非快速眼动(NREM)睡眠中，自发脑振荡的许多频带所反映的那些动态。这增加了一种可能性，即只有一种类型的加工不一定在整个睡眠期间持续进行：学习-巩固加工可能发生在某些皮质区域的某些频段，而其他频段可能发生与使用相关的加工。因此，我们将系统地考察在每个快速眼动和非快速眼动睡眠的每个频段以及不同脑区是否发生学习巩固加工或使用依赖加工(S)。为了测试学习巩固处理是否对促进睡眠中的知觉学习是必要的，我们将比较睡眠期间导致学习的任务表现(学习范式)和不引起学习的任务表现(干扰范式)后睡眠期间的时空大脑激活模式。为此，我们必须获得关于睡眠期间大脑激活的高度局部化的时空信息；我们将使用一种尖端的神经成像技术，将来自脑磁图(MEG)和脑电(EEG)的精细时间信息与来自磁共振成像(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。成像将与同步多导睡眠图测量一起进行，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的知觉学习和视觉可塑性是如何在任务训练后的睡眠中发生的提供重要的知识。

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.