Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T13:02:07.687Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Mnemonic expertise during wakefulness and sleep

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 November 2013

Martin Dresler
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Endocrinology of Sleep, D-80804 Munich, Germany. dresler@mpipsykl.mpg.de Stanford University School of Medicine, Neurology and Neurological Sciences, Stanford, CA 94305. Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, NL-6500 HB Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Boris N. Konrad
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Neuroimaging, D-80804 Munich, Germany. konrad@mpipsykl.mpg.de

Abstract

We studied the world's most distinguished experts in the use of mnemonic techniques: the top participants of the World Memory Championships. They neither feel the use of mnemonics to be dreamlike, nor does their REM sleep differ from mnemonic-naive control subjects. Besides these empirical data, also theoretical considerations contradict an isomorphism between features of REM sleep dreaming and mnemonic principles.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Conway, M. A. (2009) Episodic memories. Neuropsychologia 47(11):2305–13.Google Scholar
Dresler, M., Kluge, M., Pawlowski, M., Schüssler, P., Steiger, A. & Genzel, L. (2011) A double dissociation of memory impairments in major depression. Journal of Psychiatric Research 45:1593–99.Google Scholar
Dresler, M., Konrad, B. N., Halimsetiawan, L., Genzel, L., Spoormaker, V. I., Czisch, M. & Steiger, A. (2012) Sleep and memory consolidation in memory champions. [abstract] Journal of Sleep Research 21(Suppl. 1):71.Google Scholar
Genzel, L., Dresler, M., Wehrle, R., Grözinger, M. & Steiger, A. (2009) Slow wave sleep and REM awakenings do not affect sleep dependent memory consolidation. Sleep 32(3):302–10.Google Scholar
Genzel, L., Kiefer, T., Renner, L., Wehrle, R., Kluge, M., Grözinger, M., Steiger, A. & Dresler, M. (2012) Sex and modulatory menstrual cycle effects on sleep related memory consolidation. Psychoneuroendocrinology 37:987–98.Google Scholar
Maguire, E. A., Valentine, E. R., Wilding, J. M. & Kapur, N. (2003) Routes to remembering: The brains behind superior memory. Nature Neuroscience 6(1):9095.Google Scholar
Rasch, B., Pommer, J., Diekelmann, S. & Born, J. (2009) Pharmacological REM sleep suppression paradoxically improves rather than impairs skill memory. Nature Neuroscience 12:396–97.Google Scholar
Smith, C. T., Nixon, M. R. & Nader, R. S. (2004) Posttraining increases in REM sleep intensity implicate REM sleep in memory processing and provide a biological marker of learning potential. Learning and Memory 11(6):714–19.Google Scholar