title: Sleep facilitates long-term face adaptation.
abstract: Adaptation is an automatic neural mechanism supporting the optimization of visual processing on the basis of previous experiences. While the short-term effects of adaptation on behaviour and physiology have been studied extensively, perceptual long-term changes associated with adaptation are still poorly understood. Here, we show that the integration of adaptation-dependent long-term shifts in neural function is facilitated by sleep. Perceptual shifts induced by adaptation to a distorted image of a famous person were larger in a group of participants who had slept (experiment 1) or merely napped for 90 min (experiment 2) during the interval between adaptation and test compared with controls who stayed awake. Participants' individual rapid eye movement sleep duration predicted the size of post-sleep behavioural adaptation effects. Our data suggest that sleep prevented decay of adaptation in a way that is qualitatively different from the effects of reduced visual interference known as 'storage'. In the light of the well-established link between sleep and memory consolidation, our findings link the perceptual mechanisms of sensory adaptation--which are usually not considered to play a relevant role in mnemonic processes--with learning and memory, and at the same time reveal a new function of sleep in cognition.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London WC1N 3AR, UK. thomas.ditye@ucl.ac.uk
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ditye
authors.forename: Amir Homayoun
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Javadi
authors.forename: Claus-Christian
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Carbon
authors.forename: Vincent
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Walsh
mesh_terms: D000222:Adaptation, Physiological; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D005366:Figural Aftereffect; D006801:Humans; D008562:Membrane Glycoproteins; D008568:Memory; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D010469:Perceptual Distortion; D017472:Receptors, Interleukin-1; D012890:Sleep; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D008562:Membrane Glycoproteins; D017472:Receptors, Interleukin-1; C434984:TIRAP protein, human
keywords: adaptation; faces; figural after-effects; learning; plasticity; sleep