Psychiatria pre prax 3/2015

How is the memory consolidated during the sleep?

lder research attribute sleep passive role in enhancing memory and emphasize its function of protection from disturbing stimulus. Current theories emphasize the active role of sleep in which memories are undergoing a process of consolidation. Recent works has revealed the importance of slow-wave sleep (SWS) for memory consolidation and also enlightened some of the underlying electrophysiological and neurochemical mechanisms. Specifically, newer findings characterize sleep as a brain state optimizing memory consolidation, in opposition to the waking brain being optimized for encoding of memories. The different stages of sleep play in the consolidation process different role. Consolidation originates from reactivation of recently encoded neuronal memory representations, which occur during SWS and transform respective representations for integration into long-term memory. Ensuing REM sleep may stabilize transformed memories. Sleep disturbances, including its architecture and can negatively affect the process of memory consolidation.

Keywords: REM sleep, SWS sleep, consolidation of memory, architecture of sleep.