Studies of memory reactivation during sleep using intracranial recordings

睡眠对身体的功能至关重要，但科学家们还没有发现我们为什么睡觉的所有原因。最近的证据表明，睡眠有助于记忆，尽管这是如何发生的还没有得到很好的理解。这个项目探讨了记忆能力取决于记忆存储方式的睡眠变化的想法。研究人员有特殊的机会从放置在人脑内的传感器获得大脑活动的记录。在一些频繁癫痫发作的患者中，当药物治疗无效时，手术治疗可以大大提高生活质量。放置在选定的大脑位置的传感器可以隔离异常活动的来源，之后可以移除该脑组织。这些患者通常愿意并能够帮助研究人员了解睡眠期间发生的事情，以保存记忆。研究人员将探索睡眠期间新记忆的重新激活如何提高记忆信息的能力。睡眠期间的这种记忆处理可能是学习的重要组成部分。该项目的结果可能对教育进步和改善整个生命周期记忆的方法产生影响。研究人员计划开展活动，以增加公众对科学的理解，并加强对睡眠重要益处的认识。该领域的一个关键假设是，大脑中一个被称为海马体的区域在睡眠期间起着帮助巩固记忆的作用。这可能需要将记忆中解剖学上不同的组成部分联系起来，逐渐将新知识与先前知识结合起来，保护记忆存储，并可能改变存储的内容。研究人员将分析来自功能性脑组织的大脑活动记录，以确定当睡眠期间的音频输入促进记忆重新激活时，记忆储存是如何改变的。先前发现的脑振荡（所谓的慢振荡、睡眠纺锤波和海马波纹）及其精确的时间相互关系被认为是至关重要的。因此，对记忆再激活期间获得的这些信号的分析被定位为提供关于基于睡眠的记忆改善的神经机制的新知识，从而促进了对人们每天获得的大量记忆中的一小部分得以长期存在的基本理解。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过利用基金会的智力价值进行评估而被认为值得支持和更广泛的影响审查标准。

Sleep is crucial to the body's ability to function but scientists have yet to uncover all the reasons for why we sleep. Recent evidence shows that sleep contributes to memory, although how that happens is not yet well understood. This project explores the idea that the ability to remember depends on sleep-based changes in how memories are stored. The investigators have the special opportunity to obtain recordings of brain activity from sensors placed inside the human brain. In some patients with frequent epileptic seizures, when pharmacological treatments are ineffective, a surgical treatment can greatly enhance quality-of-life. Sensors placed in selected brain locations can isolate the source of abnormal activity, after which this brain tissue can be removed. These patients are usually willing and able to help the investigators understand what happens during sleep to preserve memories. The investigators will explore how the reactivation of new memories during sleep improves the ability to remember the information. This type of memory processing during sleep could constitute an essential ingredient for learning. Results from this project may have implications for educational advances and for approaches to improving memory across the lifespan. The investigator plans activities to increase public understanding of science and to bolster recognition of the vital benefits of sleep.A key hypothesis in the field is that a brain region known as the hippocampus functions during sleep to help consolidate memories. This can entail linking anatomically disparate components of a memory, gradually integrating new knowledge with prior knowledge, securing memory storage, and potentially transforming what is stored. The investigators will analyze recordings of brain activity from functional brain tissue to determine how memory storage is altered when audio input during sleep promotes memory reactivation. Brain oscillations identified previously (so-called slow oscillations, sleep spindles, and hippocampal ripples), and their precise temporal interrelationships, are hypothesized to be critical. Analyses of these signals obtained during memory reactivation are thus positioned to provide new knowledge about neural mechanisms of sleep-based memory improvement, thus advancing fundamental understanding of what allows a small subset of the massive number of memories people acquire each day to survive for the long term.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.