ArticleNature communications2021
Reward biases spontaneous neural reactivation during sleep.
Article in Nature communications, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
30 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 72 citations in OpenAlex.
- Preferential consolidation of emotional reactivity during sleep: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2022Pooled it
- Theta oscillations tag episodic memories for sleep-dependent consolidation.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- A large-scale heterogeneous 3D magnetic resonance brain imaging dataset for self-supervised learning.Scientific data · 2026Article
- Slow wave canonical activity deviation concept: Toward a slow wave-based EEG-fMRI reference map for health-associated network function.iScience · 2026Article
- Article
- Prioritizing Detailed Item Memories Through Post-Encoding Motivation Requires Consolidation.Open mind : discoveries in cognitive science · 2026Article
- Unconscious switching of dorsal and medial pathways for plasticity and stability during NREM and REM sleep.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Post-learning replay of hippocampal-striatal activity is biased by reward-prediction signals.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Reinforcement learning increasingly relates to memory specificity from childhood to adulthood.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Electrophysiological signatures underlying variability in human memory consolidation.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Concurrent representations of reinstated and transformed memories and their modulation by reward.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2025Article
- Top-down instruction outweighs emotional salience: nocturnal sleep physiology indicates selective memory consolidation.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2025Article
- Memory reactivation generates new, adaptive behaviours that reach beyond direct experience.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Article
- Modulating social learning-induced evaluation updating during human sleep.NPJ science of learning · 2024Article
- Memory for rewards guides retrieval.Communications psychology · 2024Article
- Memory consolidation from a reinforcement learning perspective.Frontiers in computational neuroscience · 2024Article
- Neural reactivation during human sleep.Emerging topics in life sciences · 2023Review
- Item-specific neural representations during human sleep support long-term memory.PLoS biology · 2023Article
- The influence of encoding strategy on associative memory consolidation across wake and sleep.Learning & memory (Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.) · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 4 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Sleep favors the reactivation and consolidation of newly acquired memories. Yet, how our brain selects the noteworthy information to be reprocessed during sleep remains largely unknown. From an evolutionary perspective, individuals must retain information that promotes survival, such as avoiding dangers, finding food, or obtaining praise or money. Here, we test whether neural representations of rewarded (compared to non-rewarded) events have priority for reactivation during sleep. Using functional MRI and a brain decoding approach, we show that patterns of brain activity observed during waking behavior spontaneously reemerge during slow-wave sleep. Critically, we report a privileged reactivation of neural patterns previously associated with a rewarded task (i.e., winning at a complex game). Moreover, during sleep, activity in task-related brain regions correlates with better subsequent memory performance. Our study uncovers a neural mechanism whereby rewarded life experiences are preferentially replayed and consolidated while we sleep.
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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.