Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory - Australian Research Centre for Interactive and Virtual Environments, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia; College of Nursing and Health Sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia.
Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory - Australian Research Centre for Interactive and Virtual Environments, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia; Department of Medical Social Sciences, Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, United States.
Neurobiol Learn Mem. 2023 Nov;205:107842. doi: 10.1016/j.nlm.2023.107842. Epub 2023 Oct 15.
Memory is critical for many cognitive functions, from remembering facts, to learning complex environmental rules. While memory encoding occurs during wake, memory consolidation is associated with sleep-related neural activity. Further, research suggests that individual differences in alpha frequency during wake (∼7 - 13 Hz) modulate memory processes, with higher individual alpha frequency (IAF) associated with greater memory performance. However, the relationship between wake-related EEG individual differences, such as IAF, and sleep-related neural correlates of memory consolidation has been largely unexplored, particularly in a complex rule-based memory context. Here, we aimed to investigate whether wake-derived IAF and sleep neurophysiology interact to influence rule learning in a sample of 35 healthy adults (16 males; mean age = 25.4, range: 18 - 40). Participants learned rules of a modified miniature language prior to either 8hrs of sleep or wake, after which they were tested on their knowledge of the rules in a grammaticality judgement task. Results indicate that sleep neurophysiology and wake-derived IAF do not interact but modulate memory for complex linguistic rules separately. Phase-amplitude coupling between slow oscillations and spindles during non-rapid eye-movement (NREM) sleep also promoted memory for rules that were analogous to the canonical English word order. As an exploratory analysis, we found that rapid eye-movement (REM) sleep theta power at posterior regions interacts with IAF to predict rule learning and proportion of time in REM sleep predicts rule learning differentially depending on grammatical rule type. Taken together, the current study provides behavioural and electrophysiological evidence for a complex role of NREM and REM sleep neurophysiology and wake-derived IAF in the consolidation of rule-based information.
记忆对于许多认知功能至关重要，从记忆事实到学习复杂的环境规则。虽然记忆编码发生在清醒时，但记忆巩固与睡眠相关的神经活动有关。此外，研究表明，清醒时的阿尔法频率个体差异（∼7-13 Hz）调节记忆过程，个体阿尔法频率（IAF）越高，记忆表现越好。然而，清醒时的 EEG 个体差异（如 IAF）与睡眠相关的记忆巩固的神经相关性之间的关系在很大程度上尚未得到探索，特别是在复杂基于规则的记忆背景下。在这里，我们旨在研究在 35 名健康成年人（16 名男性；平均年龄= 25.4，范围：18-40）的样本中，清醒时的 IAF 和睡眠神经生理学是否相互作用，以影响规则学习。参与者在睡眠或清醒 8 小时之前学习修改后的微型语言规则，然后在语法判断任务中测试他们对规则的了解程度。结果表明，睡眠神经生理学和清醒时的 IAF 不会相互作用，但会分别调节对复杂语言规则的记忆。非快速眼动（NREM）睡眠期间慢波和纺锤波之间的相位-振幅耦合也促进了与规范英语词序相似的规则的记忆。作为探索性分析，我们发现后部区域的快速眼动（REM）睡眠θ功率与 IAF 相互作用，以预测规则学习，并且 REM 睡眠时间比例根据语法规则类型差异预测规则学习。总之，本研究提供了行为和电生理证据，证明了 NREM 和 REM 睡眠神经生理学以及清醒时的 IAF 在基于规则的信息巩固中的复杂作用。
