The role of dreaming in REM and NREM sleep-dependent memory functions

为了研究睡眠和做梦在改善记忆过程中的作用，需要设备来支持一个研究项目。该设备将提供开发和管理依赖于快速眼动或非快速眼动睡眠的特定类型的认知和运动任务所需的工具，包括一套新的程序性任务（姿势平衡）。它将增强实验室在实验室和家庭环境中评估睡眠/清醒状态的能力。它还将为实验室和家庭梦境采样提供高质量的a /V系统，包括自动化梦境收集（基于电话的录音）、转录（语音到文本翻译）和内容分析（文本挖掘）的组件。它将允许实验室研究人员开发软件工具包来评估睡眠中的复杂生物信号，特别是非快速眼动脑电图睡眠纺锤波。该研究项目旨在复制和扩展过去20年的重要发现，这些发现表明，快速眼动和非快速眼动睡眠，以及在某种程度上从这两种状态做梦，有助于改善一系列需要不同类型记忆的认知和运动技能。该设备将使我们能够解决关于梦在记忆中的作用的基本问题，例如：1)梦到一项任务是否会提高对该任务的记忆？2)快速眼动和非快速眼动类型的梦是否与不同类型的记忆相关（例如，程序性与陈述性）；3)通过实验增加梦境情绪是否会增强对非情绪任务的记忆？使用神经认知测试系统，健康受试者将在一系列研究中接受评估，在这些研究中，已知的依赖于快速眼动和非快速眼动睡眠的学习任务在睡前进行，并在第二天重新进行测试。多导睡眠仪将用于监测睡眠，A/V系统用于采样、转录和分析快速眼动和非快速眼动梦。对梦的测量有望预测任务学习的改善——与睡眠测量无关。预计这些发现将复制和扩展睡眠相关记忆巩固的发现，从而有助于阐明梦的功能和记忆的机制。研究结果也可能为记忆改善和康复提供新的策略。

Equipment is requested to support a research program for investigating the roles of sleep and dreaming in processes of memory improvement. The equipment will provide tools needed to develop and administer specific types of cognitive and motor tasks that depend upon REM or nonNREM sleep, including a novel set of procedural tasks (postural balance). It will enhance the laboratory's capacity to assess sleep/wake states in both lab and home settings. It will also provide a quality A/V system for sampling lab and home dreams, including components for automating dream collection (phone-based recording), transcription (speech-to-text translation), and content analysis (text-mining). It will allow lab researchers to develop software toolkits to assess complex biosignals during sleep, nonREM EEG sleep spindles in particular. The research program is designed to replicate and extend key discoveries made over the last 20 years demonstrating that REM and nonREM sleep, and to some extent dreaming from these two states, contribute to improvements in a range of cognitive and motor skills requiring different types of memory. The equipment will allow us to address basic questions about dreaming's role in memory such as: 1) Does dreaming about a task lead to improved memory for that task? 2) Are REM and nonREM types of dreams associated with different types of memory (e.g., procedural vs. declarative); 3) Will experimentally increasing dream emotion enhance memory for non-emotional tasks? Using the neurocognitive testing system, healthy subjects will be assessed in a series of studies in which learning tasks known to depend upon REM and nonREM sleep are given before sleep and retested the next day. Polysomnography will be used to monitor sleep and the A/V system used to sample, transcribe, and analyze REM and NREM dreaming. Dream measures are expected to predict improved task learning-independent of sleep measures. It is expected that the findings will replicate and extend discoveries in sleep-related memory consolidation, thus helping to clarify the functions of dreaming and the mechanisms of memory. Findings may also provide novel strategies for memory improvement and rehabilitation.