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Odor Cues During Slow-Wave Sleep Prompt Declarative Memory Consolidation
Björn Rasch,1*Christian Büchel,2Steffen Gais,1Jan Born1*
Sleep facilitates memory consolidation. A widely held modelassumes that this is because newly encoded memories undergocovert reactivation during sleep. We cued new memories in humansduring sleep by presenting an odor that had been presented ascontext during prior learning, and so showed that reactivationindeed causes memory consolidation during sleep. Re-exposureto the odor during slow-wave sleep (SWS) improved the retentionof hippocampus-dependent declarative memories but not of hippocampus-independentprocedural memories. Odor re-exposure was ineffective duringrapid eye movement sleep or wakefulness or when the odor hadbeen omitted during prior learning. Concurring with these findings,functional magnetic resonance imaging revealed significant hippocampalactivation in response to odor re-exposure during SWS.
1 Department of Neuroendocrinology, University of Lübeck, Ratzeburger Allee 160/23a, 23538 Lübeck, Germany. 2 NeuroImage Nord, Department of Systems Neuroscience, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Martinistrasse 52, 20246 Hamburg, Germany.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: born{at}kfg.uni-luebeck.de (J.B.); rasch{at}kfg.uni-luebeck.de (B.R.)
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