Sleep improves the consolidation of both declarative and non-declarative memories. Diekelmann and Born discuss the potential mechanisms through which slow wave sleep and rapid eye movement sleep support system and synaptic consolidation. Sleep has been identified as a state that optimizes the consolidation of newly acquired information in memory, depending on the specific conditions of learning and the timing of sleep. Consolidation during sleep promotes both quantitative and qualitative changes of memory representations. Through specific patterns of neuromodulatory activity and electric field potential oscillations, slow-wave sleep (SWS) and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep support system consolidation and synaptic consolidation, respectively. During SWS, slow oscillations, spindles and ripples — at minimum cholinergic activity — coordinate the re-activation and redistribution of hippocampus-dependent memories to neocortical sites, whereas during REM sleep, local increases in plasticity-related immediate-early gene activity — at high cholinergic and theta activity — might favour the subsequent synaptic consolidation of memories in the cortex.

The memory function of sleep

Over more than a century of research has established the fact that sleep benefits the retention of memory. In this review we aim to comprehensively cover the field of "sleep and memory" research by providing a historical perspective on concepts and a discussion of more recent key findings. Whereas initial theories posed a passive role for sleep enhancing memories by protecting them from interfering stimuli, current theories highlight an active role for sleep in which memories undergo a process of system consolidation during sleep. Whereas older research concentrated on the role of rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep, recent work has revealed the importance of slow-wave sleep (SWS) for memory consolidation and also enlightened some of the underlying electrophysiological, neurochemical, and genetic mechanisms, as well as developmental aspects in these processes. Specifically, newer findings characterize sleep as a brain state optimizing memory consolidation, in opposition to the waking brain being optimized for encoding of memories. Consolidation originates from reactivation of recently encoded neuronal memory representations, which occur during SWS and transform respective representations for integration into long-term memory. Ensuing REM sleep may stabilize transformed memories. While elaborated with respect to hippocampus-dependent memories, the concept of an active redistribution of memory representations from networks serving as temporary store into long-term stores might hold also for non-hippocampus-dependent memory, and even for nonneuronal, i.e., immunological memories, giving rise to the idea that the offline consolidation of memory during sleep represents a principle of long-term memory formation established in quite different physiological systems.

https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/77770/1/physiol_rev_93.pdf

About sleep's role in memory

The concept of 'sleeping on a problem' is familiar to most of us. But with myriad stages of sleep, forms of memory and processes of memory encoding and consolidation, sorting out how sleep contributes to memory has been anything but straightforward. Nevertheless, converging evidence, from the molecular to the phenomenological, leaves little doubt that offline memory reprocessing during sleep is an important component of how our memories are formed and ultimately shaped.

Sleep-dependent memory consolidation

The hippocampus has long been known to be involved in spatial navigational learning in rodents, and in memory for events in rodents, primates and humans. A unifying property of both navigation and event memory is a requirement for dealing with temporally sequenced information. Reactivation of temporally sequenced memories for previous behavioural experiences has been reported in sleep in rats. Here we report that sequential replay occurs in the rat hippocampus during awake periods immediately after spatial experience. This replay has a unique form, in which recent episodes of spatial experience are replayed in a temporally reversed order. This replay is suggestive of a role in the evaluation of event sequences in the manner of reinforcement learning models. We propose that such replay might constitute a general mechanism of learning and memory.

Reverse replay of behavioural sequences in hippocampal place cells during the awake state

https://walkerlab.berkeley.edu/reprints/Walker%20et%20al._Neuron_2002.pdf

Practice with Sleep Makes Perfect: Sleep-Dependent Motor Skill Learning

Performance on a visual discrimination task shows long-term improvement after a single training session. When tested within 24 hr of training, improvement was not observed unless subjects obtained at least 6 hr of post-training sleep prior to retesting, in which case improvement was proportional to the amount of sleep in excess of 6 hr. For subjects averaging 8 hr of sleep, overnight improvement was proportional to the amount of slow wave sleep (SWS) in the first quarter of the night, as well as the amount of rapid eye movement sleep (REM) in the last quarter. REM during the intervening 4 hr did not appear to contribute to improvement. A two-step process, modeling throughput as the product of the amount of early SWS and late REM, accounts for 80 percent of intersubject variance. These results suggest that, in the case of this visual discrimination task, both SWS and REM are required to consolidate experience-dependent neuronal changes into a form that supports improved task performance.

Visual Discrimination Task Improvement: A Multi-Step Process Occurring During Sleep

Apoptosis, proliferation and p12doc-1 profiles in normal, dysplastic and malignant squamous epithelium of the Syrian hamster cheek pouch model

The prevalence of allergic disorders has been increasing worldwide and significantly impacts the quality of life of the atopic individual. There has been an increased interest in the role of probiotics for the prevention and treatment of allergic disorders, given the recent evidence that atopy risk may be associated with a dysbiosis of the gut microbiome. Research in this area is ongoing with some studies showing possible benefits of probiotics, with seemingly little to no risk. While these studies suggest that there may be a promise in probiotic use for the prevention or treatment of allergy, further evidence is needed to determine its efficacy, optimal dosing, and strains needed for treatment. In this review, we discuss recently published studies examining the benefits, risks, and role of probiotics in preventing atopic dermatitis, asthma, allergic rhinitis, and food allergy. 

Role of Probiotics in Allergic Diseases

Potential of Probiotics in Improving Gut Health

Bioelectronic medicine is a way of treating in which the electrical communication networks of the body are altered to treat disease. Bioelectric circuitry in every cell creates a resting membrane potential as well as endogenous electric fields that regulate cell function and communication. The theory that cancer is caused by bioelectrical circuitry malfunctions in cells is now widely acknowledged. This opens up the possibility of using bioelectronic medicine to develop new cancer treatments by influencing the disease's bioelectrical properties. To meet societal and technical obstacles, today's individuals aspire to better their quality of life. So, in the midst of all of this, bioelectronic medicine has altered the way we practice medicine and has proven to dramatically enhance healthcare outcomes.  This technique employs a variety of procedures, such as neuromodulation, to treat a specific disease, ailment, or damage. Interfacing electronics with nerves to specifically target the biological processes underlying diseases. In cancer, screening and early detection are crucial for the patient's therapy to be successful and for the patient's survival percentage to grow. For illness diagnosis, therapy, and follow-up, the development of analytical methods for non-invasive detection through the analysis of cancer biomarkers is crucial. Tumor biomarkers are substances or processes that indicate the existence of cancer in the body in clinical situations. These biomarkers can be detected using biosensors, which are popular alternatives to traditional approaches due to their speed, accuracy, and point-of-care applicability. Here we have discussed the consequences of current cancer treatments and bioelectronic medicine a combat for cancer diagnosis and treatment.

Vipul Patel

Papers

Visual Discrimination Task Improvement: A Multi-Step Process Occurring During Sleep

Apoptosis, proliferation and p12doc-1 profiles in normal, dysplastic and malignant squamous epithelium of the Syrian hamster cheek pouch model

Role of Probiotics in Allergic Diseases

Potential of Probiotics in Improving Gut Health

Core Concept Of Bioelectronic Medicine And Their Theranostic Application In Cancer