Project description
Understanding how sleep shapes and filters our memories
Our memories shape who we are, influencing everything from daily decisions to our sense of self. But the process by which the brain forms, stores, and discards memories remains a mystery. While sleep is known to play a key role in reinforcing relevant memories, its role in eliminating unwanted ones has yet to be fully understood. The ERC-funded SLEEPAWAY project explores how memory reactivation during sleep may weaken and reduce the accessibility of unwanted memories, promoting adaptive forgetting. By combining innovative neuroimaging techniques with real-world memory manipulation, the project will shed light on the intricate mechanisms that help our brains filter out unnecessary information, paving the way for clinical interventions in emotion regulation and memory-related conditions.
Objective
What we remember and forget lies at the core of who we are. But how do our brains shape our memories of the past? Sleep promotes the flexible use of memory by reactivating and thereby strengthening information that is most relevant to our future needs. Whether memory reactivation in sleep also weakens unwanted components of prior experience is unknown, but represents a major gap in our understanding of memory and how sleep influences our autobiographical identities. SLEEPAWAY combines an innovative technique for manipulating lab-based and real-world memories with an unprecedented array of neuroimaging methodologies to test the novel hypothesis that memory reactivation during sleep weakens unwanted memories in service of adaptive forgetting. Using magnetoencephalography with optically pumped magnetometers (OPM-MEG), I will first determine whether reactivating a target memory in slow-wave sleep weakens unwanted memories from the same experience, making them less accessible. Second, I will bring together OPM-MEG, fMRI and immersive virtual reality to obtain the first anatomically localised evidence of emotional memory reactivation in human rapid eye movement sleep, closing an important translational gap with extant animal models. Third, I will employ fMRI and EEG to examine the intriguing possibility that memory reactivation in sleep facilitates emotion regulation by weakening negative interpretations of real-world events, fostering a concrete pathway towards clinical intervention. Finally, to advance understanding of the symbiotic relationship between endogenous memory operations in the waking and sleeping brain, I will use OPM-MEG to test the prediction that active forgetting during wakefulness inhibits spontaneous memory reactivation in later sleep. In sum, SLEEPAWAY will make a substantial novel theoretical contribution by delineating the basic mechanisms through which our brains eradicate unwanted details of the past to support our cognitive and emotional goals.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project has not yet been classified with EuroSciVoc.
Be the first one to suggest relevant scientific fields and help us improve our classification service
You need to log in or register to use this function
Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
-
HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
See all projects funded under this programme
Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
See all projects funded under this funding scheme
Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2024-COG
See all projects funded under this callHost institution
Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
YO10 5DD YORK NORTH YORKSHIRE
United Kingdom
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.