The effects of post-training paradoxical sleep deprivation on different memory tasks

Abstract

The role of sleep in learning and memory processes has been the focus of many studies. One the most used paradigms to study this relationship consists of depriving the animal of the paradoxical phase of sleep (PS deprivation). Most of the studies report a performance impairment when PS deprivation takes place before the training. This could be preclude accurate data interpretation, because the impairment could be the consequence of the fact that acquisition of the information was not guaranteed (considering that during the training, the animal was far from normal sleep-wake normal pattern) or because PS deprivation alters retention. It is, therefore, important to consider the role of memory consolidation for the performance in the test. This study seeks to determine whether PS deprivation impairs memory consolidation in three different tasks inhibitory avoidance, contextual fear conditioning and classical fear conditioning. For each one of the tasks, rats will be trained and then distributed in two groups: control (CTL) and PS deprivation. PS deprived rats will be kept in the modified multiple platform method for 96h. During this period, CTL rats will be exposed to this environment for 1h/day. At the end of the 96h period the animals were tested in the respective task. (AU)