Yuval Nir | Funsy Seminar |  Sensory disconnection and memory consolidation
Channel: Funsy-Seminars
Date: 2023-03-23

Funsy seminar 22/03/2023 | University of Strasbourg | France

Title:  Sensory disconnection and memory consolidation

Abstract: Afundamental feature of sleep is that a sensory stimulus does notreliably affect behavior or subjective experience. What mediates such“sensory disconnection”? Do similar processes occur duringanesthesia, cognitive lapses, and some neuropsychiatric disorders? In a series of studies in humans and rodents, we compared neuronalresponses to identical auditory stimuli across wakefulness and sleep.In A1, early single-neuron spiking responses are largely comparableacross wakefulness, natural sleep, and light anesthesia. However,robust differences emerge in downstream high-level regions andlate-responding neurons, and in signatures of feedback processing,suggesting that sleep impairs effective cortical connectivity. Next,we show that reduced locus coeruleus-noradrenaline (LC-NE) activityduring sleep mediates sensory disconnection. In rodents, the level ofongoing tonic LC activity during sleep anticipates sound-evokedawakenings, while minimal optogenetic LC activation or silencingincreases and decreases such awakenings, respectively. In humans,pharmacological manipulation of NE levels modulates sensoryperception and late sensory responses, suggesting that NE linkssensory awareness to external world events. We are exploring novelmethods such as transcutaneous vagal nerve stimulation to modulateLC-NE non-invasively in humans.  Finally, I will present recentresults on sleep and memory consolidation. In epilepsy patientsimplanted with depth electrodes we investigate the effects ofintracranial electrical closed loop stimulation during sleep onmemory and hippocampal-neocortical dialogue at single-neuronresolution.

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