Abnormal Locus Coeruleus Sleep Activity Alters Sleep Signatures of Memory Consolidation and Impairs Place Cell Stability and Spatial Memory.

ABSTRACT: Sleep is critical for proper memory consolidation. The locus coeruleus (LC) releases norepinephrine throughout the brain except when the LC falls silent throughout rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and prior to each non-REM (NREM) sleep spindle. We hypothesize that these transient LC silences allow the synaptic plasticity that is necessary to incorporate new information into pre-existing memory circuits. We found that spontaneous LC activity within sleep spindles triggers a decrease in spindle power. By optogenetically stimulating norepinephrine-containing LC neurons at 2 Hz during sleep, we reduced sleep spindle occurrence, as well as NREM delta power and REM theta power, without causing arousals or changing sleep amounts. Stimulating the LC during sleep following a hippocampus-dependent foo

SUBMITTER: Swift KM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7556718 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature