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Comment
. 2010 Mar;11(3):218; author reply 218.
doi: 10.1038/nrn2762-c1.

Overnight alchemy: sleep-dependent memory evolution

Matthew P Walker, Robert Stickgold
Comment

Overnight alchemy: sleep-dependent memory evolution

Matthew P Walker et al. Nat Rev Neurosci. 2010 Mar.
No abstract available

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Evolutionary stages of episodic memory processing
a. at initial encoding, the hippocampus (green/yellow) rapidly binds neocortical elements (red) of the episodic experience. During subsequent sleep, novel representation of the experience are formed, including b. unitized memory representations, which result from the building of cortical connections between recently learned, related items (units), the product of which (conjoined units), may or may not have any applicability beyond or outside of those bound elements, depending on situational context; c. assimilated representations, formed through the building of associations between recent experiences (unitized or not) and pre-existing, semantically related memory networks (orange); d. abstracted representations, or generalized schemas, which emerge through the discovery of a commonality rule from newly acquired or pre-existing unitized or assimilated representations, and represent novel information not present in the representations from which they are extracted. Such abstraction does not emerge simply from the forming of connections between related items, or even their assimilation into semantic networks. Instead, it represents a further distillation and subsequent creation of an information grammar or statistical law that is built from, yet is distinct from, such associative networks. While all three forms of representation can develop during wake, either with or without conscious awareness, sleep may have evolved in part to provide brain states optimized for such memory processing.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment on

  • The memory function of sleep.
    Diekelmann S, Born J. Diekelmann S, et al. Nat Rev Neurosci. 2010 Feb;11(2):114-26. doi: 10.1038/nrn2762. Epub 2010 Jan 4. Nat Rev Neurosci. 2010. PMID: 20046194 Review.

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