0212 CRITICAL WINDOWS OF WAKING: SLEEP-DEPENDENT MEMORY CONSOLIDATION REQUIRES A WAKING PERIOD PRIOR TO SLEEP

• Published in: Sleep (New York, N.Y.) Vol. 40; no. suppl_1; pp. A78 - A79
• Main Authors: Stepan, M, Fenn, K
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: US Oxford University Press 28.04.2017
• Subjects: Sleep
• ISSN: 0161-8105; 1550-9109
• DOI: 10.1093/sleepj/zsx050.211

Abstract Introduction: Sleep has consistently been shown to be beneficial for hippocampal-dependent declarative memory, such as memory for word pairs. Prior research has found that sleeping within 3 hours after learning is more beneficial for memory than delaying sleep for 15 hours. However, the ideal relationship between waking and subsequent sleep is unclear. The purpose of the current research was to investigate how information learned at various intervals prior to sleep was later affected by sleep. Methods: During Encoding, participants learned 24 pairs of non-semantically related words and completed a cued recall test without feedback to assess learning. That night, participants recorded when they went to bed using a smartphone app. Twenty-four hours after Encoding, participants returned to the lab and completed a final cued recall test. Results: We found that a quadratic, rather than a linear, relationship existed between time to sleep onset and performance on the final cued recall test. In other words, participants who delayed going to sleep by several hours (approximately 3–9 hours) performed better at test and lost proportionally fewer word pairs across the delayed retention interval than participants who went to sleep sooner than 3 hours after Encoding or later than 9 hours after Encoding. Conclusion: Sleeping immediately after learning new information is not as beneficial as delaying sleep for several hours. However, delaying sleep for longer periods of time (more than 9 hours) is also less beneficial for memory. The critical window in which sleep is most beneficial for consolidating new declarative memory is approximately between 3 and 9 hours. Support (If Any): None.