Neurobiology of Learning and Memory
September 1, 2021
Claudia Picard-Deland, Tomy Aumont, Arnaud Samson-Richer et al.
Sleep facilitates memory consolidation through offline reactivations of memory traces. Dreaming may play a role in memory improvement and may reflect these memory reactivations. To experimentally address this question, we used targeted memory reactivation (TMR), i.e., application, during sleep, of a stimulus that was previously associated with learning, to assess whether it influences...
Frontiers in Neuroscience
March 18, 2021
Louis-Philippe Marquis, Sarah-Hélène Julien, Véronique Daneault et al.
6 citations
Nightmares are highly dysphoric dreams that are well-remembered upon awakening. Frequent nightmares have been associated with psychopathology and emotional dysregulation, yet their neural mechanisms remain largely unknown. Our neurocognitive model posits that nightmares reflect dysfunction in a limbic-prefrontal circuit comprising medial prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortices, hippocampus,...
Consciousness and Cognition
August 1, 2020
Claudia Picard-Deland, Maude Pastor, Elizaveta Solomonova et al.
25 citations
Despite a high prevalence and broad interest in flying dreams, these exceptional experiences remain infrequent. Our study aimed to (1) induce flying dreams using a custom-built virtual reality (VR) flying task, (2) examine their phenomenological correlates and (3) investigate their relations to participant state and trait factors. 137 participants underwent VR-flying followed by a morning nap....
Consciousness and Cognition
August 1, 2020
Cloé Blanchette-Carrière, Sarah-Hélène Julien, Claudia Picard-Deland et al.
20 citations
Neurophysiological correlates of self-awareness during sleep ('lucid dreaming') remain unclear despite their importance for clarifying the neural underpinnings of consciousness. Transcranial direct (tDC) and alternating (tAC) current stimulation during sleep have been shown to increase dream self-awareness, but these studies' methodological weaknesses prompted us to undertake additional study....
Front Psychol
January 23, 2020
Elizaveta Solomonova, Simon Dubé, Cloé Blanchette-Carrière et al.
9 citations
Different Patterns of Sleep-Dependent Procedural Memory Consolidation in Vipassana Meditation Practitioners and Non-meditating Controls.
Sleep Medicine
April 1, 2019
Tore Nielsen, Michelle Carr, Claudia Picard-Deland et al.
OBJECTIVE Childhood adversity figures prominently in the clinical histories of children and adolescents suffering from a panoply of physical, mental or sleep disorders, including posttraumatic stress disorder. But the nature and prevalence of early adversity in the case of idiopathic nightmare-prone individuals have received little study. We characterize the types and frequencies of...
Sleep Medicine
October 1, 2018
Claudia Picard-Deland, Michelle Carr, Tyna Paquette et al.
Idiopathic nightmares are a common disturbance of rapid eye movement sleep (REM) sleep, but studies of comorbid pathologies and sleep architecture suggest that non-REM (NREM) sleep is also affected. Sleep spindles are a NREM sleep characteristic associated with both pathophysiology and sleep-dependent memory consolidation, yet they have not been evaluated in frequent nightmare recallers. The...
March 1, 2017
Tore Nielsen, Michelle Carr, Cloé Blanchette-Carrière et al.
Both rapid eye movement (REM) sleep dreaming and non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep spindles have been linked to processes of memory consolidation. However, relationships between the two phenomena have yet to be explored. In a heterogeneous sample of 53 healthy subjects who had participated in a memory consolidation protocol and who varied in their self-reported recall of dreams and...
Journal of Sleep Research
August 1, 2015
Gaëlle Dumel, Michelle Carr, Louis-Philippe Marquis et al.
Although sleep facilitates learning and memory, the roles of dreaming and habitual levels of recalling dreams remain unknown. This study examined if performance and overnight improvement on a rapid eye movement sleep-sensitive visuomotor task is associated differentially with habitually high or low dream recall frequency. As a relation between dream production and visuospatial skills has been...
Neurobiology of Learning and Memory
July 1, 2015
Tore Nielsen, C O'Reilly, Michelle Carr et al.
Memory consolidation is associated with sleep physiology but the contribution of specific sleep stages remains controversial. To clarify the contribution of REM sleep, participants were administered two REM sleep-sensitive tasks to determine if associated changes occurred only in REM sleep. Twenty-two participants (7 men) were administered the Corsi Block Tapping and Tower of Hanoi tasks prior...
Elizaveta Solomonova, Simon Dubé, Arnaud Samson-Richer et al.
Vipassana meditation is characterized by observing bodily sensations, developing emotional and attentional stability and promoting pro-social qualities. Whether these qualities are also reflected in dream content is not currently known. Evidence relating dream content with sleep-depending learning is mixed: some studies suggest that dreaming of a task is beneficial for improvement, while others...
Elizaveta Solomonova, Simon Dubé, Cloé Blanchette-Carrière et al.
Study objectives: Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, and sleep spindles are all implicated in the consolidation of procedural memories. The relative contributions of sleep stages and sleep spindles was previously shown to depend on individual differences in task processing. Experience with Vipassana meditation is one such individual difference that has not been...