Resume

• 2007

  Postdoctoral Fellowship

• 2002

  City College of New York

  Furman University

  Harvard Medical School/Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

  Harvard Medical School

  Instructor

  Psychology of Sleep and Dreams\t\t \nFall 2002-Fall 2004\n\nInstructor

  Psychology in the Modern World\t\t\nNew York

  NY Fall 2004\n\nInstructor

  Experimental Psychology\t\t\t\nSpring 2005-Fall 2006

  City College of New York

  Furman University

  Greenville

  South Carolina Area

  Associate Professor

  Greenville

  SC

  Assistant Professor

  Furman University

  Harvard Medical School

  Harvard Medical School/Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

  Boston

  MA

  Postdoctoral Research Fellow

  Ph.D.

  Cognitive Neuroscience

• 1998

  B.A.

  Psychology

  Philosophy

• Erin Wamsley - Google Scholar Citations

  Complete list of publications on Google Scholar

  Physiology

  Consciousness

  Neuropsychology

  Animal Models

  Learning & Memory

  Cognition

  Psychology

  Experimental Design

  Sleep

  Science

  Scientific Writing

  EEG

  Neuroscience

  Psychiatry

  Electrophysiology

  Reduced sleep spindles and spindle coherence in schizophrenia: mechanisms of impaired memory consolidation?

  et al.

  Ann K. Shinn

  Sleep spindles are thought to induce synaptic changes and thereby contribute to memory consolidation during sleep. Patients with schizophrenia show dramatic reductions of both spindles and sleep-dependent memory consolidation

  which may be causally related. To examine the relations of sleep spindle activity to sleep-dependent consolidation of motor procedural memory

  21 chronic

  medicated schizophrenia outpatients and 17 healthy volunteers underwent polysomnography on two consecutive nights. On the second night

  participants were trained on the finger-tapping motor sequence task (MST) at bedtime and tested the following morning. The number

  density

  frequency

  duration

  amplitude

  spectral content

  and coherence of stage 2 sleep spindles were compared between groups and examined in relation to overnight changes in MST performance.\nPatients failed to show overnight improvement on the MST and differed significantly from control participants who did improve. Patients also exhibited marked reductions in the density (reduced 38% relative to control participants)

  number (reduced 36%)

  and coherence (reduced 19%) of sleep spindles but showed no abnormalities in the morphology of individual spindles or of sleep architecture. In patients

  reduced spindle number and density predicted less overnight improvement on the MST. In addition

  reduced amplitude and sigma power of individual spindles correlated with greater severity of positive symptoms.\nThe observed sleep spindle abnormalities implicate thalamocortical network dysfunction in schizophrenia. In addition

  the findings suggest that abnormal spindle generation impairs sleep-dependent memory consolidation in schizophrenia

  contributes to positive symptoms

  and is a promising novel target for the treatment of cognitive deficits in schizophrenia.

  Reduced sleep spindles and spindle coherence in schizophrenia: mechanisms of impaired memory consolidation?

  Robert Stickgold

  Joseph Benavides

  It is now well established that postlearning sleep is beneficial for human memory performance. Meanwhile

  human and animal studies have demonstrated that learning-related neural activity is re-expressed during posttraining nonrapid eye movement (NREM) sleep. NREM sleep processes appear to be particularly beneficial for hippocampus-dependent forms of memory. These observations suggest that learning triggers the reactivation and reorganization of memory traces during sleep

  a systems-level process that in turn enhances behavioral performance. Here

  we hypothesized that dreaming about a learning experience during NREM sleep would be associated with improved performance on a hippocampus-dependent spatial memory task. Subjects were trained on a virtual navigation task and then retested on the same task 5 hr after initial training. Improved performance at retest was strongly associated with task-related dream imagery during an intervening afternoon nap. Task-related thoughts during wakefulness

  in contrast

  did not predict improved performance. These observations suggest that sleep-dependent memory consolidation in humans is facilitated by the offline reactivation of recently formed memories

  and furthermore that dream experiences reflect this memory processing. That similar effects were not observed during wakefulness suggests that these mnemonic processes are specific to the sleep state.

  Dreaming of a learning task is associated with enhanced sleep-dependent memory consolidation

  Andrew Gaulden

  Kelly Hamilton

  Stephanie Manceor

  Ward Tishler

  Kate Brokaw

  Numerous studies demonstrate that post-training sleep benefits human memory. At the same time

  emerging data suggest that other resting states may similarly facilitate consolidation. In order to identify the conditions under which non-sleep resting states benefit memory

  we conducted an EEG (electroencephalographic) study of verbal memory retention across 15 min of eyes-closed rest. Participants (n = 26) listened to a short story and then either rested with their eyes closed

  or else completed a distractor task for 15 min. A delayed recall test was administered immediately following the rest period. We found

  first

  that quiet rest enhanced memory for the short story. Improved memory was associated with a particular EEG signature of increased slow oscillatory activity (<1 Hz)

  in concert with reduced alpha (8–12 Hz) activity. Mindwandering during the retention interval was also associated with improved memory …

  Resting state EEG correlates of memory consolidation

  Robert Stickgold

  Here

  we examined the effect of a daytime nap on changes in virtual maze performance across a single day. Participants either took a short nap or remained awake following training on a virtual maze task. Post-training sleep provided a clear performance benefit at later retest

  but only for those participants with prior experience navigating in a three-dimensional (3D) environment. Performance improvements in experienced players were correlated with delta-rich stage 2 sleep. Complementing observations that learning-related brain activity is reiterated during post-navigation NREM sleep in rodents

  the present data demonstrate that NREM sleep confers a performance advantage for spatial memory in humans.

  A brief nap is beneficial for human route-learning: The role of navigation experience and EEG spectral power

  Research in animals has demonstrated that patterns of neural activity first seen during waking experience are later \"replayed\" during sleep

  in hippocampal and cortical networks. The characteristics of memory reactivation during human sleep

  however

  have not yet been fully described. Meanwhile

  the possible relationship of dreaming to this \"replay\" of memories in the sleeping brain is entirely unknown. In the present study

  we induced hippocampus-dependent memory retrieval during human sleep using a \"trace conditioning\" procedure. Prior to sleep

  subjects underwent either trace (hippocampus-dependent) or delay (hippocampus-independent) auditory fear conditioning. Conditioned stimuli were then presented to subjects during non-REM sleep. Both delay-conditioned and trace-conditioned subjects exhibited conditioned EEG responses during post-training sleep. However

  selectively in trace-conditioned subjects

  fear-conditioned cues also affected the valence of dreamed emotions. These findings suggest that hippocampus-dependent learning is accessible during non-REM sleep

  and that hippocampus-mediated memory reactivation may be expressed

  not only through neural activity in the sleeping brain

  but also within concomitant subjective experience.

  The expression of trace conditioning during non-REM sleep and its relation to subjective experience

  Recent studies show that brief periods of rest after learning facilitate consolidation of new memories. This effect is associated with memory-related brain activity during quiet rest and suggests that in our daily lives

  moments of unoccupied rest may serve an essential cognitive function.

  Memory Consolidation during Waking Rest

  Erin