Scientific article
OA Policy
English

Impact of spindle-inspired transcranial alternating current stimulation during a nap on sleep-dependent motor memory consolidation in healthy older adults

Published inSleep advances, vol. 6, no. 2, zpaf022
Publication date2025-04-10
First online date2025-03-26
Abstract

With the increase in life expectancy and the rapid evolution of daily life technologies, older adults must constantly learn new skills to adapt to society. Sleep reinforces skills acquired during the day and is associated with the occurrence of specific oscillations such as spindles. However, with age, spindles deteriorate and thus likely contribute to memory impairments observed in older adults. The application of electric currents by means of transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) with spindle-like waveform, applied during the night, was found to enhance spindles and motor memory consolidation in young adults. Here, we tested whether tACS bursts inspired by spindles applied during daytime naps may (i) increase spindle density and (ii) foster motor memory consolidation in older adults. Twenty-six healthy older participants performed a force modulation task at 10:00, were retested at 16:30, and the day after the initial training. They had 90-minute opportunity to take a nap while verum or placebo spindle-inspired tACS bursts were applied with similar temporal parameters to those observed in young adults and independently of natural spindles, which are reduced in the elderly. We show that the density of natural spindles correlates with the magnitude of memory consolidation, thus confirming that spindles are promising physiological targets for enhancing memory consolidation in older adults. However, spindle-inspired tACS, as used in the present study, did not enhance either spindles or memory consolidation. We therefore suggest that applying tACS time-locked to natural spindles might be required to entrain them and improve their related functions.

Keywords
  • Healthy aging
  • Motor learning
  • Nap
  • Sleep-dependent memory consolidation
  • Spindles
  • Transcranial alternating current stimulation
Funding
  • Network of European Funding for Neuroscience Research [PHRT-#2017-205]
Citation (ISO format)
MOYNE, Maeva et al. Impact of spindle-inspired transcranial alternating current stimulation during a nap on sleep-dependent motor memory consolidation in healthy older adults. In: Sleep advances, 2025, vol. 6, n° 2, p. zpaf022. doi: 10.1093/sleepadvances/zpaf022
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accessLevelPublic
Identifiers
Journal ISSN2632-5012
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Technical informations

Creation10/11/2025 11:58:28
First validation02/12/2025 14:00:39
Update02/12/2025 14:00:39
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