Evidence map›Paper›PMID 25498222›Full record

ArticleNeurobiology of learning and memory2015

REM sleep rescues learning from interference.

Elizabeth A McDevitt, Katherine A Duggan, Sara C Mednick

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Neurobiology of learning and memory, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 46 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
46citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

46 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Trial
  2. Article
  3. Article
  4. Article
  5. Article
  6. REM refines and rescues memory representations: a new theory.Sleep advances : a journal of the Sleep Research Society · 2025
    Review
  7. Memory Reactivation during Sleep Does Not Act Holistically on Object Memory.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2024
    Article
  8. When memories get complex, sleep comes to their rescue.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024
    Article
  9. Article
  10. Review
  11. Article
  12. Article
  13. Article
  14. A neural network account of memory replay and knowledge consolidation.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2022
    Article
  15. Article
  16. Article
  17. A model of autonomous interactions between hippocampus and neocortex driving sleep-dependent memory consolidation.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022
    Article
  18. Article
  19. Article
  20. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

Elizabeth A McDevittDepartment of Psychology, University of California, Riverside, 900 University Avenue, Riverside, CA 92521, USA.
Katherine A DugganDepartment of Psychology, University of California, Riverside, 900 University Avenue, Riverside, CA 92521, USA.
Sara C MednickDepartment of Psychology, University of California, Riverside, 900 University Avenue, Riverside, CA 92521, USA. Electronic address: smednick@ucr.edu.

Funding

The Pharmacological Enhancement of Sleep for Memory ImprovementR01AG046646 · NIA · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE · PI MEDNICK, SARA CAROLE · 2014 to 2018
$1.5M
Understanding memory consolidation by studying pharmacologically enhanced napsK01MH080992 · NIMH · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO · PI MEDNICK, SARA CAROLE · 2007 to 2011
$807k
NIA NIH HHS R01 AG046646NIMH NIH HHS K01 MH080992
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Classical human memory studies investigating the acquisition of temporally-linked events have found that the memories for two events will interfere with each other and cause forgetting (i.e., interference; Wixted, 2004). Importantly, sleep helps consolidate memories and protect them from subsequent interference (Ellenbogen, Hulbert, Stickgold, Dinges, & Thompson-Schill, 2006). We asked whether sleep can also repair memories that have already been damaged by interference. Using a perceptual learning paradigm, we induced interference either before or after a consolidation period. We varied brain states during consolidation by comparing active wake, quiet wake, and naps with either non-rapid eye movement sleep (NREM), or both NREM and REM sleep. When interference occurred after consolidation, sleep and wake both produced learning. However, interference prior to consolidation impaired memory, with retroactive interference showing more disruption than proactive interference. Sleep rescued learning damaged by interference. Critically, only naps that contained REM sleep were able to rescue learning that was highly disrupted by retroactive interference. Furthermore, the magnitude of rescued learning was correlated with the amount of REM sleep. We demonstrate the first evidence of a process by which the brain can rescue and consolidate memories damaged by interference, and that this process requires REM sleep. We explain these results within a theoretical model that considers how interference during encoding interacts with consolidation processes to predict which memories are retained or lost.

Indexed as

Sleep, REMAdolescentAdultHumansLearningMemory ConsolidationVisual PerceptionYoung AdultInterferenceNappingPerceptual learningPlasticityREM sleep

Identifiers

PMID25498222
PMCPMC4704701

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.