Summary:

Sleep spindles are 12-15Hz waxing and waning neural oscillations occurring during non-rapid eye movement sleep. They are believed to be mechanistically involved in memory consolidation, the strengthening and stabilisation of recently acquired memories, through inducing LTP and synaptic plasticity in learning-related hippocampal-cortical networks. A recent framework proposes that spindle-mediated memory consolidation should favour so-called adaptive memories, those experiences that are personally salient or goal-relevant. In this talk, I will present an outline for a study designed to directly test this hypothesis for the first time. I will employ a lateralised encoding task and present stimuli to a single visual field that should create distinct encoding representations in the contralateral hemisphere. Memory for items in one visual field will be prioritised for consolidation by being associated with a financial reward if remembered at a post-sleep test. I hypothesise that during sleep, sleep spindle activity will be heightened over the rewarded hemisphere (compared with unrewarded), and that this spindle activity will correlate with memory for the high-reward items.