A research group at Hokkaido University Graduate School, Tohoku University, and Tohoku University Graduate School, in collaboration with Strathclyde University in the UK, has found that brainstem brain waves cooperate with hippocampal brain waves, which are important for memory consolidation, during REM sleep in mice, and that hippocampal brain waves are suppressed during non-REM sleep. Clarify what you are doing.Elucidation of the mechanism of memory fixation and erasure is expected.
During dreaming REM sleep, P waves are generated in the pons of the brainstem and theta waves are generated in the hippocampus. During non-REM sleep, which is important for brain rest, sharp wave ripples are generated in the hippocampus.All brain waves are important for memory consolidation. For a long time, it was thought that P-waves did not exist in mice, but in 2020, a research group succeeded in recording P-waves in mice for the first time in the world.
This time, we discovered that P-waves generated in the brainstem during REM sleep are also generated in NREM sleep in mice.Therefore, when we examined the relationship between P waves and hippocampal brain waves, we found that REM sleep P waves acted in concert with hippocampal brain waves (theta waves) that are important for memory, but non-REM sleep P waves acted in concert with hippocampal brain waves that are important for memory. EEG (sharp wave ripple) was suppressed.We found that the same P-waves may have different roles in memory consolidation in non-REM sleep and REM sleep.This has also been observed in rhesus monkeys.
The difference in the role of NREM P-waves and REM P-waves in memory consolidation needs to be investigated at the behavioral level of mice in the future.In addition, P-waves have long been regarded as the mechanism of dream generation, and research on P-waves has the potential to elucidate the neural circuits of dreaming and the physiological significance of dreams.Dreams in REM sleep are fantastic and tell a story, but dreams in non-REM sleep are said to be short and thoughtful.It is possible that the difference in the content of dreams in different sleep stages is due to differences in the physiological role of P-waves, which needs to be elucidated in the future.
Paper information:【SLEEP】Pontine waves accompanied by short hippocampal sharp wave-ripples during non-rapid eye movement sleep
