Sleep-dependent transformation of reward-related memory

• Applicant: Privatdozent Dr. Gordon Feld
• Subject Area: General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology
• Term: from 2016 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 290208383

Reward is the most effective way to influence learning. For example, in humans money can be used as incentive to better retain certain information. Although, the interaction of reward and learning has been intensely investigated, it remains completely unclear, if processes during learning are sufficient to explain this effect. Over the last two decades, intense scientific efforts have accumulated broad support for the concept that sleep benefits memory formation. Having focused on rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep for nearly a century, more recent research has indicated that slow wave sleep (SWS) is especially beneficial for memory. During sleep-dependent memory consolidation SWS stabilizes and transforms the memory trace learned during the prior wake period. During this process the memory trace is transferred from its temporary store in the medial temporal lobes to more permanent stores in the cortex. Only relevant information is consolidated during sleep, while less relevant information is forgotten. The overarching goal of this project is to investigate how sleep transforms relevant and less relevant memory traces across time. To this end, high or low amounts of money are used to give more or less relevance to neutral pictures during learning. It will be investigated I., if high-rewarded pictures benefit more from sleep than low-rewarded pictures, II., if the sleep-dependent difference between high- and low-rewarded pictures increases over time, III., if sleep-dependent consolidation leads to changes in brain activity and IV., if this consolidation of learned pictures leads to better learning of new high rewarded pictures at a later time point. These novel investigations will significantly expand our basic scientific understanding about the interaction between reward-leaning and sleep-dependent memory consolidation and to allow more specific applications of rewards combined with sleep, e.g., during ADHD treatment or during behavioural strategies to quit smoking.

• DFG Programme: Research Fellowships
• International Connection: United Kingdom
• Hosts: Dr. Daniel Bendor; Dr. Hugo Spiers