Contribution of the Cortical Neuro-Glial Network to Memory Processing during Sleep

Learning of complex motor tasks modifies local network activity in the primary motor cortex (M1), is substantially rehearsed during subsequent sleep and is associated with an interregional (i.e. cortico-striato-hippocampal) reorganization of the memory trace. At the cortical level, in addition to neurons, this process critically depends on astrocytic calcium signaling. However, the learning-dependent in vivo patterns of coordinated neuro-glial activity involved in memory formation during subsequent wake and sleep remain unclear. Using chronic in vivo imaging we will monitor, in a brain-state specific manner, neuronal and astroglial calcium signaling in M1 before, during and immediately after the complex wheel learning task as well as during preceding and subsequent sleep. We will test how learning performance, underlying task-specific activity patterns and interregional local field potentials (LFPs) are influenced by acute sleep deprivation and how network activity is re-activated post learning in a similar but not identical task, requiring generalization process, i.e., gist abstraction. Taken together our data will provide an unprecedented insight into the in vivo interactions between neurons and neuroglia underlying complex motor learning and its rehearsal by sleep.