RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Spatiotemporal patterns of transcranial electrical stimulation can strengthen the metamemory of individual episodic memories in humans
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 672378
DO 10.1101/672378
A1 Praveen K. Pilly
A1 Steven W. Skorheim
A1 Ryan J. Hubbard
A1 Nicholas A. Ketz
A1 Shane M. Roach
A1 Aaron P. Jones
A1 Bradley Robert
A1 Natalie B. Bryant
A1 Itamar Lerner
A1 Arno Hartholt
A1 Teagan S. Mullins
A1 Jaehoon Choe
A1 Vincent P. Clark
A1 Michael D. Howard
YR 2019
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/06/15/672378.abstract
AB Long-term retention of memories critically depends on consolidation processes, which occur during slow-wave oscillations (SWOs) in non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep. We designed a non-invasive system that can tag one-shot experiences of naturalistic episodes within immersive virtual reality (VR) with unique spatiotemporal amplitude-modulated patterns (STAMPs) of transcranial electrical stimulation (tES). We demonstrate that these STAMPs can be re-applied during UP states of SWOs on two consecutive nights to achieve a 19.43% improvement in the metamemory of targeted episodes at 48 hours after the one-shot viewing, compared to the control episodes. Further, we found an interaction between pre-sleep metamemory of targeted episodes and the number of STAMP applications for those episodes during sleep, and that STAMPs elicit increases in left temporal slow-spindle (9-12 Hz) power that are predictive of overnight metamemory improvements. These results prescribe an optimal strategy to leverage STAMPs for boosting metamemory based on pre-sleep performance and tracking the STAMP-induced biomarker during sleep, and suggest that real-world episodic memories can be modulated in a targeted manner even with coarser, non-invasive spatiotemporal stimulation.