title: Wakeful rest promotes the integration of spatial memories into accurate cognitive maps.
abstract: Flexible spatial navigation, e.g. the ability to take novel shortcuts, is contingent upon accurate mental representations of environments-cognitive maps. These cognitive maps critically depend on hippocampal place cells. In rodents, place cells replay recently travelled routes, especially during periods of behavioural inactivity (sleep/wakeful rest). This neural replay is hypothesised to promote not only the consolidation of specific experiences, but also their wider integration, e.g. into accurate cognitive maps. In humans, rest promotes the consolidation of specific experiences, but the effect of rest on the wider integration of memories remained unknown. In the present study, we examined the hypothesis that cognitive map formation is supported by rest-related integration of new spatial memories. We predicted that if wakeful rest supports cognitive map formation, then rest should enhance knowledge of overarching spatial relations that were never experienced directly during recent navigation. Forty young participants learned a route through a virtual environment before either resting wakefully or engaging in an unrelated perceptual task for 10 min. Participants in the wakeful rest condition performed more accurately in a delayed cognitive map test, requiring the pointing to landmarks from a range of locations. Importantly, the benefit of rest could not be explained by active rehearsal, but can be attributed to the promotion of consolidation-related activity. These findings (i) resonate with the demonstration of hippocampal replay in rodents, and (ii) provide the first evidence that wakeful rest can improve the integration of new spatial memories in humans, a function that has, hitherto, been associated with sleep.
authors.affiliation: Human Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom.|Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, Department of Psychology, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Craig
authors.affiliation: Human Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom.|Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, Department of Psychology, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom.|Department of Psychology, School of Life Sciences, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Michaela
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dewar
authors.affiliation: Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, Department of Psychology, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Mathew A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Harris
authors.affiliation: Human Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom.|Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, Department of Psychology, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Sergio
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Della Sala
authors.affiliation: Aging and Cognition Research Group, German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), Magdeburg, Germany.|Center for Behavioral Brain Sciences (CBBS), Otto-von-Guericke University, Magdeburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Wolbers
mesh_terms: D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012146:Rest / Q000502:physiology*; D065852:Spatial Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D065854:Spatial Navigation / Q000502:physiology*; D014851:Wakefulness / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: cognitive map; hippocampal replay; long-term memory; memory consolidation; place cells; spatial memory; spatial navigation; wakeful rest