Relationships Between Sleep Spindle and Cognitive Process in Healthy Adults

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It is currently well demonstrated that sleep promotes brain plasticity and therefore is directly involved in cognitive processes such as memory, language, reasoning, learning, intelligence, problem solving…. Sleep deprivation affects most cognitive processes. More specifically, it is the sleep micro...

It is currently well demonstrated that sleep promotes brain plasticity and therefore is directly involved in cognitive processes such as memory, language, reasoning, learning, intelligence, problem solving…. Sleep deprivation affects most cognitive processes. More specifically, it is the sleep microstructure and in particular the sleep spindles that are specifically linked to memory, learning and cognitive abilities. Sleep spindles are grapho-elements that characterize NREM sleep. They exhibit high inter-individual stability and variability, depend on the genetic heritage and correlate with anatomical properties of the brain. Sleep spindles can therefore be considered as an electrophysiological "finger-print" as one of the most heritable traits of humans. Studies support the notion that sleep spindles are electrophysiological markers of high-level cognitive abilities. It remains to be seen whether the sleep spindles can predict interindividual variations in attention and executive functions.

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