Sleep and Memory in Children
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SLEEP AND DEVELOPMENT (L TAROKH, SECTION EDITOR)
Sleep and Memory in Children Kerstin Hoedlmoser 1 Accepted: 29 October 2020 / Published online: 28 November 2020 # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Purpose of Review This short review article aims at emphasizing interesting and important new insights about investigating sleep and memory in children aged between 6 and 13 years (middle childhood). Recent Findings That sleep in comparison to wakefulness benefits the consolidation of memories is well established—especially for the adult population. However, the underlying theoretical frameworks trying to explain the benefits of sleep for memory still strive for more substantiate findings including biological and physiological correlates. Summary Based on the most recent literature about sleep-related memory consolidation and its physiological markers during middle childhood, this article provides a review and highlights recent updates in this field. Keywords Middle childhood . Sleep . Memory consolidation . Sleep spindles . Slow oscillations
Introduction Relationships between sleep and memory processes in the adult brain are nowadays well established. However, there are recent controversial discussions about the robustness of sleep-mediated memory benefits, which should be considered whenever investigating hypotheses in this research field. Cordi and Rasch [1••] argue that more attempts to replicate and meta-analytic approaches together with higher standards for reproducible science are critical to advance the field of sleep and memory. Besides this upcoming debate in the current adult sleep and memory literature, it still remains unclear, whether and how sleep plays a role in the development of memory in children. It has to be noted that it is important to explicitly differentiate between studies [1••] examining associations between sleep physiology and general cognitive abilities (e.g., intelligence, learning ability) indicating a trait from [2] studies comparing how sleep physiology affects overnight memory consolidation, indicating a state. It is well known that sleep is the brain’s main activity during the early years: until This article is part of the Topical Collection on Sleep and Development * Kerstin Hoedlmoser [email protected] 1
Department of Psychology, Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience (CCNS), Laboratory for “Sleep, Cognition and Consciousness Research”, University of Salzburg, Hellbrunnerstrasse 34, 5020 Salzburg, Austria
school age, a child has spent more time asleep than in social interactions, exploring the environment, eating, or any other waking activity [2, 3]. Further, it is well established that developing brains need a considerable amount of sleep each day and that sleep promotes neural plasticity and thereby memory processes—especially the consolidation of memories (i.e., a process that makes memories stronger and less vulnerable to interference). A meta-analysis by Astill and colleagues [4] suggests that insufficient sleep in children (5–12 years) is associated with deficits in higher-o
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