What is Sleep?/Is sleep for remembering or forgetting?
November 18, 2019
9:30 am - 10:30 am
- Presenter
Gina Poe (UCLA), Susan Sara (École des Neurosciences Paris Île de France)
- Abstract
Gina Poe – Sleep is for forgetting
It is possible that one of the essential functions of sleep is to take out the garbage, as it were, erasing and “forgetting” information built up throughout the day that would clutter the synaptic network that defines us. It may also be that this cleanup function of sleep is a general principle of neuroscience, applicable to every creature with a nervous system. I will discuss the importance of forgetting for development, memory integration and updating, and for resetting sensory-motor synapses after intense use. Sleep states and traits that could serve this unique forgetting function may be different for memory circuits within reach of the locus coeruleus (LC) vs. those formed and governed outside its noradrenergic net. Specifically, I will talk about the role of rapid eye movement (REM) and transition-to-REM (TR) sleep for hippocampal and somatosensory memories and the role of non-REM sleep for memories guided by the dorsal striatum (e.g., motor and procedural learning).
Susan Sara - Locus coeruelus in time with the making of memories during sleep
Experience -related reactivation of neuronal ensembles during sleep is a well-established phenomenon. It occurs mainly during high frequency sharp wave ripples in the hippocampus, but has been shown to occur in neocortical regions as well. The current belief is that newly formed synapses in replay ensembles are reinforced through a potentiation process. We have revealed an increase in firing rate of noradrenergic neurons of the locus coeruleus (LC) during nonREM sleep after learning and a temporal relationship between LC spiking and cortical slow waves and spindles. Release of Norepinephrine by LC neurons in time with these oscillations could promote synaptic plasticity and facilitate sleep-dependent memory consolidation.
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