The memory function of sleep across the life span

Abstract

Sleep is the single most common form of human behavior, indicating that sleep likely has an important evolutionary function. Yet the functions of sleep are still debated. Intriguingly, sleep is not static across the life span, changing in duration, pattern, structure, and physiology. This chapter reviews the transformations of sleep, from the first appearance of sleep prenatally to sleep in older adulthood, and assesses how the functions of sleep may change in response. This review focuses on the memory function of sleep and examines sleep-dependent consolidation across declarative, procedural, and emotional memory domains. With respect to the memory function of sleep, changes in SWS in particular appear to have the greatest impact on the resultant age-related alterations in sleep-dependent memory consolidation.