Abstrait

Does sleeping brain help consolidate associative conditioned memory in the rat

Sushil Jha

 Several studies suggest that sleep helps in the consolidation of certain memories but its role in the consolidation of trace and delay conditioned memories is not clearly known. Using the trace and delay conditioning paradigms in rats, we have found that consolidation of these memories is sleep-dependent as sleep deprivation impairs the consolidation of these memories. Further, it is believed that various sleep stages, possibly in part, provide an optimal condition to the brain for a range of distinct memory consolidation processes. For example, proficient learning of visual texture discrimination task augments total sleep, while the motor sequence task and motor adaptation task increase NREM sleep only.