CLASSy Aging · Closed-Loop Acoustic Stimulation during Sleep to enhance motor memory consolidation in Aging
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2020-09-01 → 2022-08-31
- EU contribution
- €166,320
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Closed-Loop Acoustic Stimulation during Sleep to enhance motor memory consolidation in Aging
According to the European Innovation Partnership dedicated to Active and Healthy Aging, the number of Europeans aged over 65 will double in the next 50 years, and the number of over 80-year-old will almost triple. Yet, unhealthy life years still represents approximately 20% of a person's life. As motor functioning is inextricably linked to the efficient performance of everyday life activities, it is thus of utmost importance, in our ageing society, to discover avenues to mitigate age-related deficits in motor learning. Motor memory consolidation allows a newly acquired motor memory trace to be transformed into a more stable, robust form. Importantly, post-learning sleep is known to favour consolidation in young adults but to a lesser extent in elderly. This deficit has been partially attributed to age-related changes in the sleep characteristics, including slow waves (SW – high amplitude waves in the 0.5-4 Hz frequency band) and spindles (short burst in the sigma – 12-16 Hz – frequency band), two sleep-specific electrophysiological events involved in neuroplasticity. In recent years, there has been increasing evidence that consolidation processes can be augmented in young adults by experimental interventions such as targeted memory reactivation (TMR) applied during post-learning sleep. TMR consists of replaying offline (i.e., without further task practice) sensory stimuli that were associated to the task during learning and supposedly reactivate the memory trace. In this project, we tested whether targeted memory reactivation (TMR) can be used to enhance motor memory consolidation processes during post-learning sleep in young and older adults. This research project had two specific goals: (1) to provide the behavioral correlates of TMR-induced modulation of motor memory consolidation and (2) to reveal the system-level neuroplasticity supporting the TMR-induced advantage (2.1) by identifying the direct effects of stimulation on the sleep-specific neuroplasticity events with electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings during sleep and (2.2) by assessing the changes in task-related brain patterns as quantified with pre- and post-sleep functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI).
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Research has consistently demonstrated that older adults have difficulties consolidating recently learned movements into robust motor memories. This impairment undoubtedly contributes to the movement deficits emerging with healthy aging and hinders rehabilitative strategies. As consolidation is known to be facilitated by sleep, these movement-related deficits partially result from age-associated degradations in sleep characteristics. Accordingly, the project CLASSy Aging (Closed-Loop Acoustic Stimulation during Sleep to enhance motor memory consolidation in Aging) aims to optimize sleep-related motor memory consolidation in healthy older adults. Specifically, during a post-learning nap, I will use forefront real-time electroencephalographic (EEG) analyses to reactivate memories via Targeted Memory Reactivation time-locked to neuroplasticity-related physiological events of interest (i.e., sleep spindles and slow oscillations). This project will use a novel and sophisticated approach designed to boost sleep-dependent consolidation and minimize previously observed aging-related deficits. I will unravel the neural correlates of the memory reactivation process using high-density EEG during post-learning sleep and the stimulation-enhanced neuroplasticity processes during task practice using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). This project uses a comprehensive approach as the brain will be imaged at different phases of the memory formation (i.e., learning, consolidation and retest) making use of cutting-edge neuroimaging analyses (univariate and multivariate MRI analyses, sources localization of hdEEG signal) tailored to each of these phases. This ambitious, yet feasible, multimodal neuroimaging project will provide significant insights into motor memory processes. It will offer new avenues to amplify neuroplasticity, alleviate motor deficits, and increase well-being in not only healthy aging, but ultimately in those with neurological conditions.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN · LeuvenCoordinatorBelgium
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union