Transcranial brain stimulation to study memory processing and synaptic plasticity during sleep

This project investigates the oscillatory mechanisms mediating information abstraction and underlying synaptic rescaling during sleep using real-time EEG-triggered transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) of the primary motor cortex and transcranial ultrasonic stimulation (TUS) of the thalamus in humans (i) to characterize the excitation-inhibition-balance during sleep spindles and slow oscillations, (ii) to establish spindles/slow oscillations as windows of plasticity that enable synaptic rescaling during sleep, and (iii) to demonstrate that spindles are causally relevant for information abstraction during systems consolidation.

Project contributors: Zhijian Zhao, Timo van Hattem in collaboration with the lab of Prof. Til Ole Bergmann, Mainz, Germany

Funding: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) under the project FOR 5434 “Abstraktion von Information im Schlaf”, project No. 468645090