The postdoctorat is part of a project funded by the French National Research Agency (ANR). The objective of this proposal is to examine the cognitive and neuronal mechanisms of information storage in memory from the very beginning, when information is present in working memory, until the late stage of sleep-dependent long-term consolidation of this information. One feature of the project is to investigate these mechanisms in humans and in animals (rats), the animal model offering a more direct measurement of cognitive and neuronal mechanisms of memory. The project brings together specialists in neurocognitive mechanisms of memory in humans and specialists in neuronal mechanisms of memory in rats.
The project of the postdoctorat per se is focused on humans. It is well acknowledged that the content of working memory is erased and reset after a short time, to prevent irrelevant information from proactively interfering with newly stored information. Gaël Malleret, Paul Salin and their colleagues (2017) recently explored these interference phenomena in rats. Surprisingly, they observed that under certain conditions (task with a high level of proactive interference), these interferences could be consolidated inlong-term-memory. A 24 hour-gap, involving sleep, known to allow consolidation processes to unfold, was a necessary and sufficient condition for the long-term proactive interference effect to occur. The objective of the postdoctorat is to better understand the impact of these interference phenomena in memory of humans. Behavioral and neuronal (EEG) data will be collected at various delays: at immediate, delayed and after an interval of sleep.