%0 Journal Article
%T Is Sleep Essential for Neural Plasticity in Humans, and How Does It Affect Motor and Cognitive Recovery?
%A Maurizio Gorgoni
%A Aurora D'Atri
%A Giulia Lauri
%A Paolo Maria Rossini
%A Fabio Ferlazzo
%A Luigi De Gennaro
%J Neural Plasticity
%D 2013
%I Hindawi Publishing Corporation
%R 10.1155/2013/103949
%X There is a general consensus that sleep is strictly linked to memory, learning, and, in general, to the mechanisms of neural plasticity, and that this link may directly affect recovery processes. In fact, a coherent pattern of empirical findings points to beneficial effect of sleep on learning and plastic processes, and changes in synaptic plasticity during wakefulness induce coherent modifications in EEG slow wave cortical topography during subsequent sleep. However, the specific nature of the relation between sleep and synaptic plasticity is not clear yet. We reported findings in line with two models conflicting with respect to the underlying mechanisms, that is, the ˇ°synaptic homeostasis hypothesisˇ± and the ˇ°consolidationˇ± hypothesis, and some recent results that may reconcile them. Independently from the specific mechanisms involved, sleep loss is associated with detrimental effects on plastic processes at a molecular and electrophysiological level. Finally, we reviewed growing evidence supporting the notion that plasticity-dependent recovery could be improved managing sleep quality, while monitoring EEG during sleep may help to explain how specific rehabilitative paradigms work. We conclude that a better understanding of the sleep-plasticity link could be crucial from a rehabilitative point of view. 1. Introduction In 1971, Rechtschaffen [1] stated that ˇ°if sleep does not serve an absolute vital function, then it is the biggest mistake the evolutionary process ever made .ˇ± Indeed, almost all the animal species, from the largest mammals to the fruit flies [2], show a behavioral state that can be considered sleep-like. Sleep seems to be a crucial need, as much as drinking or eating, to such an extent that chronic sleep deprivation in rats produces cellular and molecular changes in brain [3] that makes the animal die within a matter of weeks [4]. Different hypotheses were suggested to explain the functions of sleep, but a general consensus exists today that sleep is strictly linked to memory, learning and, in general, to the mechanisms of neural plasticity. Indeed, cognitive impairments, especially in learning, and memory tasks [5¨C7], are one of the main consequences of sleep deprivation. Although the link between sleep, memory, and neural plasticity has been widely investigated, such a relation is not yet completely understood. Several findings are in line with the hypothesis of a homeostatic, sleep-mediated synaptic downregulation [8, 9], while other studies support a ˇ°consolidationˇ± model based on the reactivation, during sleep, of the same areas
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/np/2013/103949/