Targeted memory reactivation during sleep to enhance relational memory and cognitive flexibility

Leclerc, Simon 2024. Targeted memory reactivation during sleep to enhance relational memory and cognitive flexibility. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

While a third of life is spent asleep, it is reasonable to admit that the exact reasons remain unclear. However, decades of intense research in the fields of cognition, biology, and psychology have brought strong evidence about the relationship between spontaneous reactivations during sleep of active encoding neuron networks and the emergence of abilities to develop original, innovative, and adaptive strategies. On that basis, a convincing technique called targeted memory reactivation (TMR) that aims to mimic spontaneous replay of memory has emerged. The present thesis combined TMR during slow-wave sleep (SWS) and rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep with an electrophysiological approach to examine behavioral benefits over time and the dynamics of neural correlates susceptible to explain them. Overall, chapter 2 has provided convincing evidence about the benefits of a full night of sleep in the consolidation of memory and the emergence of transitive inference (TI) abilities after a full night of sleep and after a week. Chapter 3 shed light on the impact of TMR during REM sleep in the progressive increase of TI accuracy through a week, the existence of theta/gamma coupling as a potential neural correlate of TI abilities, and finally. Lastly, chapter 4 provided convincing and encouraging findings about the role of TMR during SWS in the immediate improvement of TI ability and its maintenance over time, and the role of delta/sigma and delta/gamma coupling in the formation of associations between premises to create inferences. Taken together, these findings provided insightful evidence about the crucial role of sleep and the powerful potential of TMR in the formation of relational memory and long-term memory consolidation, but also pointed out the numerous remaining gaps and open questions about the neural correlates and their interaction in the formation of long-term cognitive flexibility.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Date Type:	Completion
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC) Psychology
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	23 July 2024
Last Modified:	24 Jul 2024 11:33
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/170839

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