Meier-Koll A, Bussmann B, Schmidt C, Neuschwander D
Department of Psychology, University of Konstanz, Germany.
Percept Mot Skills. 1999 Jun;88(3 Pt 2):1141-59. doi: 10.2466/pms.1999.88.3c.1141.
Human and animal studies imply that sleep is a critical period for consolidation of recent memories. Whereas the majority of researchers focussed on the procedural learning, the present human study concerns how storing of spatial information and episodic memory are linked to sleep stages. Two city mazes, a simple and a complex one, were created by means of a computer program. Local aspects of these mazes appeared as street scenes on a TV-screen. Our subjects sat in front of the screen and manoeuvered through the maze by the help of a three-button PC mouse. Thus, each subject took a 'mental walk' through an imaginary city. The task was to find various end-points and to find the way back to the starting point. Subjects of two experimental groups 'walked' through either the simple or complex city maze for eight hours. Afterwards the subjects slept in our laboratory, where their sleep stages could be measured polygraphically. Subjects who had explored the simple maze showed considerable alteration in sleep architecture. They remained significantly longer in sleep Stage 2 than subjects who had explored the complex maze. Moreover, with successful orientation in the simple maze sleep stages occurred aperiodically, whereas walking through the complex maze was associated with sleep stages in accordance with ultradian cycles, as observed in a control group. Compared to subjects of the control group who had experienced neither maze, the subjects of both experimental groups had significantly enhanced EEG sleep spindle activities. Alteration in temporal architecture of sleep and selective prolongation of sleep Stage 2 following spatial orientation point to a functional linkage between cognitive mapping of space and sleep Stage 2 with enhanced EEG spindle activity.
人类和动物研究表明，睡眠是巩固近期记忆的关键时期。虽然大多数研究人员关注程序性学习，但目前这项针对人类的研究关注的是空间信息存储和情景记忆如何与睡眠阶段相关联。通过计算机程序创建了两个城市迷宫，一个简单的和一个复杂的。这些迷宫的局部场景在电视屏幕上呈现为街道场景。我们的受试者坐在屏幕前，借助一个三键电脑鼠标在迷宫中穿梭。因此，每个受试者都在一个想象的城市中进行了一次“思维漫步”。任务是找到各个终点并找到回到起点的路。两个实验组的受试者分别在简单或复杂的城市迷宫中“行走”了8小时。之后，受试者在我们的实验室中睡觉，在那里可以通过多导睡眠图测量他们的睡眠阶段。探索过简单迷宫的受试者的睡眠结构有显著变化。他们在第二睡眠阶段停留的时间明显比探索过复杂迷宫的受试者长。此外，在简单迷宫中成功定向时，睡眠阶段无规律地出现，而在复杂迷宫中行走则与超日周期的睡眠阶段相关，这在对照组中也有观察到。与既没有体验过任何迷宫的对照组受试者相比，两个实验组的受试者脑电图睡眠纺锤波活动都显著增强。睡眠的时间结构变化以及空间定向后第二睡眠阶段的选择性延长表明，空间认知映射与第二睡眠阶段以及增强的脑电图纺锤波活动之间存在功能联系。
