Brief Communication abstract
Nature Neuroscience 12, 122 - 123 (2009)
Published online: 18 January 2009 | doi:10.1038/nn.2253
Sleep benefits subsequent hippocampal functioning
Ysbrand D Van Der Werf1,2, Ellemarije Altena1,3, Menno M Schoonheim4, Ernesto J Sanz-Arigita1,4, José C Vis1, Wim De Rijke2 & Eus J W Van Someren1,2
Sleep before learning benefits memory encoding through unknown mechanisms. We found that even a mild sleep disruption that suppressed slow-wave activity and induced shallow sleep, but did not reduce total sleep time, was sufficient to affect subsequent successful encoding-related hippocampal activation and memory performance in healthy human subjects. Implicit learning was not affected. Our results suggest that the hippocampus is particularly sensitive to shallow, but intact, sleep.
- Department of Sleep and Cognition, Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, an institute of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, Meibergdreef 47, 1105BA Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
- Departments of Clinical Neurophysiology, Vrije Universiteit Medical Center, PO Box 7057, 1007 MB Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
- Neurology, Vrije Universiteit Medical Center, PO Box 7057, 1007 MB Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
- Radiology, Vrije Universiteit Medical Center, PO Box 7057, 1007 MB Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Correspondence to: Ysbrand D Van Der Werf1,2 e-mail: y.van.der.werf@nin.knaw.nl
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