TY - JOUR
T1 - Enhanced memory consolidation via automatic sound stimulation during non-REM sleep
AU - Leminen, Miika M.
AU - Virkkala, Jussi
AU - Saure, Emma
AU - Paajanen, Teemu
AU - Zee, Phyllis C.
AU - Santostasi, Giovanni
AU - Hublin, Christer
AU - Müller, Kiti
AU - Porkka-Heiskanen, Tarja
AU - Huotilainen, Minna
AU - Paunio, Tiina
N1 - Funding Information:
Research was funded by the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation (Tekes), project 2310/31/2012. Research site was Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Helsinki, Finland. We thank sleep technologists Riitta Velin and Nina Lapveteläinen for crucial help in data collection.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017, Associated Professional Sleep Societies,LLC. All rights reserved.
PY - 2017/3/1
Y1 - 2017/3/1
N2 - Introduction: Slow-wave sleep (SWS) slow waves and sleep spindle activity have been shown to be crucial for memory consolidation. Recently, memory consolidation has been causally facilitated in human participants via auditory stimuli phase-locked to SWS slow waves. Aims: Here, we aimed to develop a new acoustic stimulus protocol to facilitate learning and to validate it using different memory tasks. Most importantly, the stimulation setup was automated to be applicable for ambulatory home use. Methods: Fifteen healthy participants slept 3 nights in the laboratory. Learning was tested with 4 memory tasks (word pairs, serial finger tapping, picture recognition, and face-name association). Additional questionnaires addressed subjective sleep quality and overnight changes in mood. During the stimulus night, auditory stimuli were adjusted and targeted by an unsupervised algorithm to be phase-locked to the negative peak of slow waves in SWS. During the control night no sounds were presented. Results: Results showed that the sound stimulation increased both slow wave (p = .002) and sleep spindle activity (p < .001). When overnight improvement of memory performance was compared between stimulus and control nights, we found a significant effect in word pair task but not in other memory tasks. The stimulation did not affect sleep structure or subjective sleep quality. Conclusions: We showed that the memory effect of the SWS-targeted individually triggered single-sound stimulation is specific to verbal associative memory. Moreover, the ambulatory and automated sound stimulus setup was promising and allows for a broad range of potential follow-up studies in the future.
AB - Introduction: Slow-wave sleep (SWS) slow waves and sleep spindle activity have been shown to be crucial for memory consolidation. Recently, memory consolidation has been causally facilitated in human participants via auditory stimuli phase-locked to SWS slow waves. Aims: Here, we aimed to develop a new acoustic stimulus protocol to facilitate learning and to validate it using different memory tasks. Most importantly, the stimulation setup was automated to be applicable for ambulatory home use. Methods: Fifteen healthy participants slept 3 nights in the laboratory. Learning was tested with 4 memory tasks (word pairs, serial finger tapping, picture recognition, and face-name association). Additional questionnaires addressed subjective sleep quality and overnight changes in mood. During the stimulus night, auditory stimuli were adjusted and targeted by an unsupervised algorithm to be phase-locked to the negative peak of slow waves in SWS. During the control night no sounds were presented. Results: Results showed that the sound stimulation increased both slow wave (p = .002) and sleep spindle activity (p < .001). When overnight improvement of memory performance was compared between stimulus and control nights, we found a significant effect in word pair task but not in other memory tasks. The stimulation did not affect sleep structure or subjective sleep quality. Conclusions: We showed that the memory effect of the SWS-targeted individually triggered single-sound stimulation is specific to verbal associative memory. Moreover, the ambulatory and automated sound stimulus setup was promising and allows for a broad range of potential follow-up studies in the future.
KW - Acoustic stimulation
KW - Auditory-evoked K-complex
KW - EEG
KW - Memory
KW - Slow-wave sleep
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U2 - 10.1093/sleep/zsx003
DO - 10.1093/sleep/zsx003
M3 - Article
C2 - 28364428
AN - SCOPUS:85017117478
SN - 0161-8105
VL - 40
JO - Sleep
JF - Sleep
IS - 3
M1 - zsx003
ER -