ArticleeLife2020
Can sleep protect memories from catastrophic forgetting?
Article in eLife, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 27 papers.
What it found
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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.
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.
Who cites it
27 citing papers in PubMed.
- Invertebrate brains as diversified models for understanding sleep mechanisms and function.Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology · 2026Review
- Context-Aware Evidence-Gated Plasticity for Multi-Goal Learning in Spiking Neural Networks.Research square · 2026Article
- Context-Aware Evidence-Gated Plasticity for Multi-Goal Learning in Spiking Neural Networks.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- The Role of Plasticity in Replay: Stability Through Anti-Hebbian Rules.Hippocampus · 2026Article
- Hippocampal indexing alters the stability landscape of synaptic weight space allowing life-long learning.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Sleep microstructure organizes memory replay.Nature · 2025Article
- REM refines and rescues memory representations: a new theory.Sleep advances : a journal of the Sleep Research Society · 2025Review
- Python/NEURON code for simulating biophysically realistic thalamocortical dynamics during sleep.Software impacts · 2024Article
- Article
- Recurring memory reactivation: The offline component of learning.Neuropsychologia · 2024Article
- A generative model of memory construction and consolidation.Nature human behaviour · 2024Article
- Do Sleep Disturbances have a Dual Effect on Alzheimer's Disease?Cellular and molecular neurobiology · 2023Review
- Remembrance of things perceived: Adding thalamocortical function to artificial neural networks.Frontiers in integrative neuroscience · 2023Review
- Sleep-like unsupervised replay reduces catastrophic forgetting in artificial neural networks.Nature communications · 2022Article
- Sleep prevents catastrophic forgetting in spiking neural networks by forming a joint synaptic weight representation.PLoS computational biology · 2022Article
- 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 · 2022Article
- Role of Sleep in Formation of Relational Associative Memory.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2022Article
- The Algorithms of Mindfulness.Science, technology & human values · 2022Article
- Self-healing codes: How stable neural populations can track continually reconfiguring neural representations.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- Modulating role of serotonergic signaling in sleep and memory.Pharmacological reports : PR · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Continual learning remains an unsolved problem in artificial neural networks. The brain has evolved mechanisms to prevent catastrophic forgetting of old knowledge during new training. Building upon data suggesting the importance of sleep in learning and memory, we tested a hypothesis that sleep protects old memories from being forgotten after new learning. In the thalamocortical model, training a new memory interfered with previously learned old memories leading to degradation and forgetting of the old memory traces. Simulating sleep after new learning reversed the damage and enhanced old and new memories. We found that when a new memory competed for previously allocated neuronal/synaptic resources, sleep replay changed the synaptic footprint of the old memory to allow overlapping neuronal populations to store multiple memories. Our study predicts that memory storage is dynamic, and sleep enables continual learning by combining consolidation of new memory traces with reconsolidation of old memory traces to minimize interference.
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Registered trials
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.