The importance of sleep in the memory consolidation process is well accepted and well studied in males. We have generated a good understanding of how neural activity patterns during specific stages of sleep facilitate strengthening, weakening, and reorganization of memory networks. We and others have found that, rapid eye movement (REM) sleep duration and the strength of the theta rhythm, the featured pattern of electrical activity common in REM sleep, contributes to memory processing. One of the important regulators of REM sleep for memory consolidation is the nucleus locus coeruleus in the brainstem which falls silent and thereby allows the depotentiation of synapses necessary for reversal learning. Although the presence of norepinephrine during waking encourages strengthening of synapses, its presence in REM sleep may be maladaptive in the case where new information must be integrated into an old memory schema. Work in our lab has identified the important role of locus coeruleus silence during REM sleep for proper reversal learning. Other features of sleep are also important in learning. However it is entirely unknown whether the locus coeruleus also falls silent in REM sleep in females. Estrogen receptors are found on the locus coeruleus, providing a set-limit function on reactivity to stressful stimuli. Cycling gonadal hormones (like estrogen) also seem to affect sleep quality in humans. We seek to investigate how sleep and locus coeruleus activity is modified across the estrus cycle in females, and see how changes in these parameters might influence mechanisms of memory consolidation in sleep, using a fear conditioning, extinction, and extinction recall learning paradigm dependent on hippocampal learning and on sleep consolidation. Given that females are more vulnerable to anxiety disorders, we want to determine if inappropriate LC activity during sleep, particularly during low hormone phases, contributes to fear memory consolidation deficits. The fundamental discoveries made in this grant period should provide groundbreaking knowledge in how the estrous cycle alters sleep features and brain areas that are important in learning so that future advances can be made in addressing mental health in females.
In our prior grant cycles we have identified key sleep features and neural activity patterns during sleep that serve to consolidate memories. However, it is not known whether the mechanisms discovered in males are the same in naturally cycling females. We seek to establish groundbreaking knowledge in how the estrous cycle alters sleep features and affects brain areas that are important in learning in order to allow future advances addressing mental health disparities between males and females.
| Záborszky, Laszlo; Gombkoto, Peter; Varsanyi, Peter et al. (2018) Specific Basal Forebrain-Cortical Cholinergic Circuits Coordinate Cognitive Operations. J Neurosci 38:9446-9458 |
| Poe, Gina R (2017) Sleep Is for Forgetting. J Neurosci 37:464-473 |
| Emrick, Joshua J; Gross, Brooks A; Riley, Brett T et al. (2016) Different Simultaneous Sleep States in the Hippocampus and Neocortex. Sleep 39:2201-2209 |
| Gross, Brooks A; Vanderheyden, William M; Urpa, Lea M et al. (2015) Stress-free automatic sleep deprivation using air puffs. J Neurosci Methods 251:83-91 |
| Vanderheyden, William M; George, Sophie A; Urpa, Lea et al. (2015) Sleep alterations following exposure to stress predict fear-associated memory impairments in a rodent model of PTSD. Exp Brain Res 233:2335-46 |
| Walsh, Christine M; Poe, Gina R (2012) The young and the rest-less. Sleep 35:745-6 |
| Watts, Alain; Gritton, Howard J; Sweigart, Jamie et al. (2012) Antidepressant suppression of non-REM sleep spindles and REM sleep impairs hippocampus-dependent learning while augmenting striatum-dependent learning. J Neurosci 32:13411-20 |
| Walsh, Christine M; Booth, Victoria; Poe, Gina R (2011) Spatial and reversal learning in the Morris water maze are largely resistant to six hours of REM sleep deprivation following training. Learn Mem 18:422-34 |
| Mashour, George A; Lipinski, William J; Matlen, Lisa B et al. (2010) Isoflurane anesthesia does not satisfy the homeostatic need for rapid eye movement sleep. Anesth Analg 110:1283-9 |
| Poe, Gina R; Walsh, Christine M; Bjorness, Theresa E (2010) Cognitive neuroscience of sleep. Prog Brain Res 185:1-19 |
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