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Electric Stimulation to Improve Memory Consolidation During Sleep

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Book cover Cognitive Neuroscience of Memory Consolidation

Abstract

During the last decade the interest in the manipulation of learning and memory by non-invasive techniques in humans has increased dramatically. Many studies focus on sleep as a beneficial or even necessary state for the consolidation of many types of memories. For manipulation methods of transcranial electric stimulation, TMS, deep brain stimulation, cued reactivation, sensory stimulation, especially auditory stimulation have been employed. Techniques closely comparable to the non-invasive human methods have also been developed in rodents. In addition optogenetic tools have enabled the functional causality of very specific pathways to be investigated in a complimentary way. This chapter focuses on effects induced by weak electric stimulation on consolidation during sleep but includes also manipulations aside from weak electric stimulation in a complimentary fashion. As of recent the variability in the efficiency of weak electric stimulation has come into the spotlight. Specifically, the relevance not only of the technical parameters of stimulation, but also of the electrophysiologically defined ‘brain state’ at the time of stimulation, as well as cognitive features of the individual per se have been addressed.

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Acknowledgements

This work was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (TR/SFB 654 and SPP1665), and NIH/NSF/BMBF/CRCNS: US-German Collaboration in Computational Neuroscience (German Ministry of Education and Research BMBF, grant 01GQ1008).

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  1. Institute of Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology, University of Lübeck, Ratzeburger Allee 160, 23562, Lübeck, Germany

    Diana Campos-Beltrán & Lisa Marshall

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  1. Diana Campos-Beltrán
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  2. Lisa Marshall
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, Germany

    Nikolai Axmacher

  2. University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland

    Björn Rasch

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Campos-Beltrán, D., Marshall, L. (2017). Electric Stimulation to Improve Memory Consolidation During Sleep. In: Axmacher, N., Rasch, B. (eds) Cognitive Neuroscience of Memory Consolidation. Studies in Neuroscience, Psychology and Behavioral Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45066-7_18

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