Understanding How Sleep Affects Memory and Aging in Healthy Adults Aged 18 to 80

What this Trial Is About

Researchers are studying how age-related changes in sleep and memory affect sleep-dependent memory processing. They aim to understand whether deficits in memory changes related to sleep are due to changes in sleep, memory, or both. The study focuses on learning differences after sleep or wake intervals in young and older adults. Participants will either take a nap or have overnight sleep, or stay awake for the same duration as the sleep condition. The study includes several experiments using tasks like word-pair learning, visuo-spatial learning, and motor sequence learning. Neuroimaging will be used in some experiments to observe brain activity during memory encoding and after sleep or wake periods. During the study, participants will complete various memory tasks and may undergo brain scans. Researchers will assess changes in memory accuracy after 2 or 12 hours depending on the experiment. Sleep quality and patterns will be monitored, and participants will be asked about their sleep habits and health history. The total participation duration varies by experiment and includes both sleep and wake testing periods.

Sleep-dependent Learning in Aging