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Targeted reactivation of motor and declarative memories linked via higher-order associations

Poster Session D - Monday, March 9, 2026, 8:00 – 10:00 am PDT, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballroom

Ainsley Temudo¹ (), Elise Perry¹, Krista Hamilton¹, Ashmita Karki¹, Bradley R. King¹, Genevieve Albouy; ¹University of Utah

Optimizing learning and memory retention has long been a focus of neuroscience research. One promising intervention is Targeted Memory Reactivation (TMR), in which learned material is paired with sensory cues that are replayed offline during consolidation to trigger memory reactivation (Hu et al., 2020). TMR during sleep has been shown to enhance both declarative (memories of facts and events) and procedural memories (memories of movement-based skills) in young adults; and electroencephalography (EEG) evidence links these effects to modulations of slow oscillations, spindles, and their coupling - mechanisms that are critical for sleep-dependent neuroplasticity (Cairney et al., 2018; Nicolas et al., 2022, 2025). While previous studies have primarily examined the effects of TMR on consolidation within individual memory domains, here, we tested whether associations across domains can be leveraged through TMR to enhance memory consolidation. Using an adapted version of the explicit Serial Reaction Time Task, twenty-four young healthy participants learned both a motor (procedural) and an object (declarative) sequence that were linked or not by higher-order associations. TMR was then administered during post-learning NREM sleep during a 90-minute nap that was monitored using real-time analyses of sleep EEG. In contrast to our expectations, TMR tended to disrupt object memory consolidation but did not indirectly affect the consolidation of the linked motor memory. These findings suggest that higher-order associations between domains may not elicit similar reactivation processes during sleep. Ongoing sleep EEG analyses will characterize the neurophysiological processes underlying direct and indirect TMR.

Topic Area: LONG-TERM MEMORY: Skill Learning