Delta and theta activity during slow-wave sleep are associated with declarative but not with non-declarative learning in children with sleep-disordered breathing

Abstract

Sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) is a prevalent sleep disorder among young children and is associated with daytime impairments, such as behavioral dysregulation, affective symptoms, and reduced cognitive performance. Microstructural changes of non-rapid eye movement sleep, particularly the reduction of slow frequency oscillations during slow-wave sleep (SWS) might be associated with impaired learning among children with SDB. In this study, we investigated the associations between learning capacity, overnight memory retention, and post-learning, spectral power density of SWS within a clinical sample of children (n = 27) with SDB. Participants performed a declarative (the “War of the Ghosts”) and a non-declarative (the “Alternating Serial Reaction Time”) memory task at night, before their clinical (nighttime polysomnographic) evaluation. Memory retention was assessed in the morning. Overnight changes in performance in the declarative and non-declarative task were not related to relative spectral power measu...