Most research on human declarative memory and its consolidation during sleep uses exhaustive learning of words. We created the visual paired associate learning (vPAL) paradigm, in which participants memorise images of celebrities and animals in an ecological manner. We found that a daytime nap improved the recognition of these celebrities compared to identical intervals of […]
Sleep helps stabilize long-term memories, for example declarative hippocampal-dependent memories have been suggested to benefit from synchronization of neuronal activity in hippocampus and cortex during NREM sleep. Working with epilepsy patients implanted with intracranial electrodes for clinical reasons, we studied this process with single neuron resolution. We used electrical pulses in the prefrontal cortex, precisely […]
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) begins with a decades-long presymptomatic phase, well before the onset of memory decline and global disturbances in sleep architecture. Does hippocampal circuit activity and its homeostasis change at these early stages, and does that occur in particular behavioral states? A collaborative study with the lab of Inna Slutsky combines electrophysiology and calcium imaging […]
In this research, we performed targeted memory reactivation (TMR) locally in one side of the brain to improved memories stored in a single hemisphere: Participants learned to associate words with left or right visual field locations while contextual odor was present. Presenting this odor again to a single nostril during post-learning naps selectively promoted memory […]
Memory consolidation during sleep is thought to depend on coordinated interplay of cortical slow waves, sleep spindles, and hippocampal ripples, but direct evidence is lacking. I developed a real-time, closed-loop system triggering intra-cortical electrical stimulation based on brain activity, that will be used to study the neurophysiology of memory consolidation processes. Synchronizing stimulation, locked to […]
