Rule abstraction is facilitated by auditory cueing in REM sleep

Pereira, Sofia Isabel Ribeiro, Santamaria, Lorena, Andrews, Ralph, Schmidt, Elena, Van Rossum, Mark and Lewis, Penelope A. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1793-3520 2023. Rule abstraction is facilitated by auditory cueing in REM sleep. Journal of Neuroscience 43 (21) , pp. 3838-3848. 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1966-21.2022

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Abstract

Sleep facilitates abstraction, but the exact mechanisms underpinning this are unknown. Here, we aimed to determine whether triggering reactivation in sleep could facilitate this process. We paired abstraction problems with sounds, then replayed these during either slow wave sleep (SWS) or rapid eye movement (REM) sleep to trigger memory reactivation in 27 human participants (19 female). This revealed performance improvements on abstraction problems which were cued in REM, but not problems cued in SWS. Interestingly, the cue-related improvement was not significant until a follow up retest one week after the manipulation, suggesting that REM may initiate a sequence of plasticity events that requires more time to be implemented. Furthermore, memory-linked trigger sounds evoked distinct neural responses in REM, but not SWS. Overall, our findings suggest that targeted memory reactivation in REM can facilitate visual rule abstraction, although this effect takes time to unfold.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Psychology
Publisher:	Society for Neuroscience
ISSN:	1529-2401
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	3 November 2022
Date of Acceptance:	22 October 2022
Last Modified:	06 Jan 2024 03:32
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/153975

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