Exercising the sleepy brain: protecting memories from the effects of sleep deprivation

动机：超过三分之一的加拿大成年人睡眠不足。这些数字在儿童和青少年中更为严重，对他们来说，睡眠不足的影响已经显示出长期的后果，对他们的认知发展和学习成绩产生负面影响。睡眠不足每年给加拿大人造成的损失占GDP的1.35%（214亿美元）。睡眠不足与工作效率下降、交通事故和工伤事故增加、医疗差错和认知障碍有关。睡眠对于维持神经可塑性和认知至关重要，而记忆是受睡眠不足影响最大的认知方面之一。寻找策略来减轻睡眠不足对神经可塑性和记忆的影响是很重要的。动物研究表明，运动可以保护记忆和神经可塑性免受睡眠剥夺的影响。运动是否也能保护人的记忆还不得而知。目的：本研究项目的长期目标是确定运动是否可以保护记忆加工免受睡眠剥夺的影响，以及这种保护作用是否由神经可塑性机制介导。我们提出了三个具有三个短期目标的项目来确定：项目1：高心肺健康水平的个体不容易受到睡眠剥夺对记忆的影响，并且这种保护作用与记忆编码过程中激活大脑网络的能力有关；项目2：在记忆编码之前进行一次锻炼，可以促进神经可塑性的变化，从而保护记忆免受睡眠剥夺的影响；项目3:8周的运动训练改善了参与记忆处理的大脑网络的功能和结构，增加了在睡眠剥夺的影响下处理记忆的能力。影响：该研究项目将为开发干预措施提供突破性信息，以减轻睡眠不足对记忆的有害影响。除了改善睡眠质量有助于保持睡眠障碍患者的认知功能外，有策略地进行锻炼还可以保持睡眠受限的个体或轮班工作的人的记忆功能。这些项目还将提供急需的信息，以了解运动如何影响睡眠不足的人脑中潜在记忆的神经可塑性过程。识别易受睡眠不足影响的神经可塑性生物标志物，并了解它们对运动的反应，将为制定更有针对性的策略提供宝贵的信息，以保护受睡眠不足有害影响最大的大脑结构和功能。

Motivation: More than one third of adult Canadians are not getting enough sleep on a regular basis. These numbers are much worse among children and adolescents, for whom the effects of sleep loss have shown to have long-term consequences, negatively affecting their cognitive development and academic performance. Insufficient sleep costs Canadians 1.35% of the GDP ($21.4 billions) annually. Sleep insufficiency is associated with loss of work productivity and increases in traffic and work-related accidents, medical errors, and cognitive impairment. Sleep is essential to maintain neuroplasticity and cognition, and memory is one of the aspects of cognition most affected by sleep loss. Finding strategies to mitigate the impact of sleep insufficiency on neuroplasticity and memory is important. Animal studies demonstrate that exercise can protect memory and neuroplasticity from the effect of sleep deprivation. Whether exercise can also protect human memory is unknown. Objectives: The long-term objective of the research program presented in this application is to determine whether exercise can protect memory processing against the effects of sleep deprivation and whether the protective effect is mediated by neuroplasticity mechanisms. We propose three projects with three short-term objectives to determine whether: Project 1: individuals with a high cardio-respiratory fitness level are less susceptible to the effects of sleep deprivation on memory and the protective effect is associated with the capacity to activate brain networks during memory encoding; Project 2: a single bout of exercise performed before memory encoding promotes neuroplasticity changes that protect memory against sleep deprivation; Project 3: eight weeks of exercise training improve the function and structure of brain networks involved in memory processing, increasing the capacity to process memories under the effects of sleep deprivation. Impact: This research program will provide ground-breaking information to develop interventions to mitigate the deleterious effects of sleep loss on memory. Besides improving sleep quality, which could contribute to preserve cognitive function in individuals with sleep disorders, sessions of exercise strategically implemented could preserve memory function in sleep-restricted individuals or in people with shift works. The projects will also provide much needed information to understand how exercise impacts neuroplasticity processes underlying memory in the sleep deprived human brain. Identifying biomarkers of neuroplasticity susceptible to sleep loss and understanding how they respond to exercise will provide invaluable information to develop more targeted strategies to protect the structures and functions of the brain most affected by the deleterious effects of sleep deprivation.