Sleep and Memory in Children

Summary

Sleep exerts a dual effect on learning: on the one hand, good sleep quality allows good daytime aptitudes leading to knowledge acquisition. On the other hand, sleep after learning is necessary for knowledge consolidation. A key role of sleep has clearly been demonstrated in memory consolidation in adults. Sleep leads to strengthen memory by promoting brain plasticity. Surprisingly, sleep influence on learning stabilization has scarcely been studied during childhood and in children affected by sleep disorders. Yet, sleep disorders concern almost 30% of children and are frequently related to a worsening in academic performances. Classical neuropsychological evaluations of these children, based on daytime learning, often fail to determine cognitive profiles explaining their academic difficulties. The investigators hypothesize that a lack of sleep-dependent consolidation could take an active part in these children's cognitive and academic difficulties. This proposal aims at characterizing interactions between sleep, learning and memory processes that have not been studied in children of elementary school age (6-12 years). The investigators will evaluate sleep-dependent memory consolidation processes in children with sleep disorders before and after treatment and healthy controls. Neuropsychological testing and academic performances will be also evaluated.. The comparison of performances obtained before and after medical treatment, will allow to understand whether normalisation of sleep quality permits the restoration of sleep-dependent memory consolidation.

Conditions

• Sleep Apnea
• Temporo-central Epilepsy
• Narcolepsy
• High Intellectual Potential
• Healthy Subject

Interventions

OTHER

memory evaluation at V1 and V2 (with treatment)

Overnight episodic and procedural memory consolidation performance will be assessed at V1 and V2. The performance will be correlated with sleep data, diurnal neuropsychological assessment and academic performance. The children receive drug treatment (BECTS and Narcolepsy) or surgical (OSA) as part of their routine care.

OTHER

memory evaluation at V1 (without treatment)

Overnight episodic and procedural memory consolidation performance will be assessed at V1. The performance will be correlated with sleep data, diurnal neuropsychological assessment and academic performance.

OTHER

memory evaluation at V1 and V2 (without treatment)

Overnight episodic and procedural memory consolidation performance will be assessed at V1 and V2. The performance will be correlated with sleep data, diurnal neuropsychological assessment and academic performance.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Hospices Civils de Lyon

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Patricia FRANCO, MD PHD · Service d'exploration et pathologie du sommeil Hôpital Femme Mère Enfant, 59 bd Pinel 69677 BRON Cedex

Study Design

Allocation

NON_RANDOMIZED

Purpose

BASIC_SCIENCE

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

6 Years

Max Age

12 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2016-02-29

Primary Completion

2018-05-29

Completion

2018-05-29

Countries

• France

Study Locations