Sleep and Selective Emotional Memory Consolidation from Young Adulthood through Middle Age

人一生中有近三分之一的时间都在睡觉，越来越多的证据表明，睡眠的一个目的是加强白天形成的记忆，尤其是那些在情感上很突出的记忆。然而，这些证据大多来自大学年龄研究参与者的数据，并不能代表更广泛的人群。人们对中年人的睡眠和记忆功能知之甚少。这项研究将研究睡眠是如何影响中年人记忆的选择性效应的。记忆选择性的一个例子是，人们倾向于非常好地记住情绪信息，这往往是以牺牲中性信息为代价的。这项研究建立在先前的发现的基础上，即睡眠在年轻人选择性巩固情绪记忆中的作用。这个项目结合了脑电图、功能磁共振成像和行为方法来研究睡眠的不同阶段和特征如何重新连接用于检索情感记忆的神经回路；这种重新布线如何受到情感事件第一次经历的方式的影响；以及这些过程是否随着年龄的变化而不同。这项研究将在两所大学提供教育和培训机会，并将通过区域和国家外展促进健康老龄化。睡眠促进了对复杂场景的情感成分的记忆，而对中性的、背景的元素的记忆没有任何好处。此外，睡眠会优先巩固吸引明显注意力的信息，并在编码过程中引发生理唤醒反应。在检索过程中，这些基于睡眠的巩固效应反映在边缘回路的活动和连接增强上。这个项目调查了睡眠是否继续帮助35岁以上的成年人选择性巩固情绪信息。如果是这样，那么情绪、大脑连接、睡眠和记忆之间的相关性是否会随着年龄的增长而保持稳定呢？如果年龄破坏了选择性巩固，那么睡眠结构和/或编码相关处理的哪些变化最能预测这种破坏，这些变化在什么年龄开始发生？该项目通过检查检索过程中涉及的神经回路进一步表征睡眠依赖性记忆巩固的下游后果，功能磁共振成像将揭示年龄是否影响记忆检索过程中与睡眠相关的边缘活动增强和连通性。这项研究将为中年人的睡眠和情绪记忆巩固提供一个基础的、基础的科学理解，并将为以睡眠为基础的干预措施的发展提供信息，以改善成年人的记忆和情感功能。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

People spend nearly one-third of their lives sleeping, and growing evidence suggests that one purpose of sleep is to strengthen memories formed during the day, particularly if these memories are emotionally salient. However, the majority of this evidence stems from data on college-age research participants that are not representative of the broader population. Little is known about sleep and memory function in middle age. This research will examine how sleep contributes to selectivity effects in memory in middle-aged people. One example of memory selectivity is the tendency to remember emotional information extremely well, often at the expense of neutral information. This research builds on prior findings, of the role of sleep in selective consolidation of emotional memories in young adults. This project combines EEG, fMRI, and behavioral approaches to examine how different phases and features of sleep can re-wire neural circuits used to retrieve emotional memories; how such re-wiring may be influenced by the way an emotional event is first experienced; and whether such processes differ as a function of age. The research will provide educational and training opportunities at two universities, and will promote healthy aging through regional and national outreach.Sleep promotes memory for emotional components of complex scenes while conferring no benefit to memory for neutral, contextual elements. Moreover, sleep preferentially consolidates information that attracts overt attention and provokes a physiological arousal response during encoding. During retrieval, these effects of sleep-based consolidation are reflected in enhanced activity and connectivity within limbic circuitry. This project investigates whether sleep continues to aide in the selective consolidation of emotional information in adults over the age of 35. If so, do correlations between emotion, brain connectivity, sleep, and memory stay stable with age? If age disrupts selective consolidation, what changes in sleep architecture and/or encoding-related processing are most predictive of that disruption, and at what age do those changes begin to occur? This project further characterizes downstream consequences of sleep-dependent memory consolidation by examining neural circuitry involved during retrieval, fMRI will reveal whether age influences the sleep-related enhancement in limbic activity and connectivity during memory retrieval. This research will develop a foundational, basic-science understanding of sleep and emotional memory consolidation in middle age, and will inform development of sleep-based interventions to improve mnemonic and affective function as adults age.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.