TY  - JOUR
AU  - Craig, Michael
AU  - Dewar, Michaela
AU  - Harris, Mathew A
AU  - Della Sala, Sergio
AU  - Wolbers, Thomas
TI  - Wakeful rest promotes the integration of spatial memories into accurate cognitive maps.
JO  - Hippocampus
VL  - 26
IS  - 2
SN  - 1050-9631
CY  - New York, NY [u.a.]
PB  - Wiley
M1  - DZNE-2020-04791
SP  - 185-193
PY  - 2016
AB  - Flexible spatial navigation, e.g. the ability to take novel shortcuts, is contingent upon accurate mental representations of environments-cognitive maps. These cognitive maps critically depend on hippocampal place cells. In rodents, place cells replay recently travelled routes, especially during periods of behavioural inactivity (sleep/wakeful rest). This neural replay is hypothesised to promote not only the consolidation of specific experiences, but also their wider integration, e.g. into accurate cognitive maps. In humans, rest promotes the consolidation of specific experiences, but the effect of rest on the wider integration of memories remained unknown. In the present study, we examined the hypothesis that cognitive map formation is supported by rest-related integration of new spatial memories. We predicted that if wakeful rest supports cognitive map formation, then rest should enhance knowledge of overarching spatial relations that were never experienced directly during recent navigation. Forty young participants learned a route through a virtual environment before either resting wakefully or engaging in an unrelated perceptual task for 10 min. Participants in the wakeful rest condition performed more accurately in a delayed cognitive map test, requiring the pointing to landmarks from a range of locations. Importantly, the benefit of rest could not be explained by active rehearsal, but can be attributed to the promotion of consolidation-related activity. These findings (i) resonate with the demonstration of hippocampal replay in rodents, and (ii) provide the first evidence that wakeful rest can improve the integration of new spatial memories in humans, a function that has, hitherto, been associated with sleep.
KW  - Cognition: physiology
KW  - Female
KW  - Humans
KW  - Male
KW  - Photic Stimulation: methods
KW  - Psychomotor Performance: physiology
KW  - Reaction Time: physiology
KW  - Rest: physiology
KW  - Spatial Memory: physiology
KW  - Spatial Navigation: physiology
KW  - Wakefulness: physiology
KW  - Young Adult
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
C6  - pmid:26235141
DO  - DOI:10.1002/hipo.22502
UR  - https://pub.dzne.de/record/138469
ER  -