Chronobiology
Author: Agustina Laura Lo Celso | Email: agustina.lc@hotmail.com
Agustina L. Lo Celso 1°, Gabriel P. Asís 1°, Ana Pereyra 1°, Josefina Brau 1°, Nerea L. Herrero 1°, Luis I. Brusco 2°3° , Rodrigo Ramele 4°, Marina Trakas 1°3°, Cecilia Forcato 1°
1° Laboratorio de Sueño y Memoria, Departamento de Ciencias de la Vida, Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires (ITBA).
2° Centro de Neuropsiquiatría y Neurología de la Conducta – CENECON, Facultad de Ciencias Médicas, Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA).
3° Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET).
4° Laboratorio de Neurotrónica, Departamento de Informática, Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires (ITBA)
Sleep promotes the consolidation and strengthening of recently acquired memories. This enhancement is driven by the reactivation, transfer, redistribution, and integration of information. Such information processing gives rise to what we recognize as dream content. Dreaming does not solely depend on the global state of oscillatory activity of the cortex; instead, it relies on localized oscillatory activity. Some theories suggest that dreaming correlates with a decrease in the power of low-frequency oscillatory activity and an increase in the power of high-frequency activity, as measured by electroencephalography (EEG), compared to periods without dream content.
On the other hand, dream content can be incubated during the wakefulness preceding sleep or during hypnagogia. During hypnagogia, the frequency of dream-like reports is notably high (around 80-90%), encompassing vivid experiences. Additionally, prior research has demonstrated that incubating dream-like content during hypnagogia results in approximately 67% of dream content being related to the incubation instructions.
In this study, we will discuss preliminary results concerning the electrophysiological correlates of dreaming in a dream incubation paradigm during the hypnagogic period, as well as its impact on dream content in Non-REM Stage 2 sleep.