Individual baseline memory performance and its significance for sleep-dependent memory consolidation

Abstract

Today, there is little doubt concerning the significance of sleep for memory consolidation. Some studies have suggested, however, that overnight memory consolidation as well as their underpinning neural mechanisms might be modulated by general cognitive abilities. In this paper, we used a more specific trait measure of declarative word-pair encoding efficiency, namely “baseline memory performance (BMP).” We explored its relation to consolidation and stabilization of declarative memories overnight as well as its relationship to sleep mechanisms. We included healthy subjects and insomnia patients from two studies with slightly differing demands on declarative memory. In the first study, an insomnia sample (N = 21) performed a declarative word-pair association task with pre- and post-sleep retrieval sessions and recorded 8 hr of nocturnal sleep following learning. In the second study, insomnia (N = 24) as well as sex-and-age-matched control (N = 29) subjects underwent a similar task but with an additional in...