TY  - JOUR
AB  - Current theories of memory processing postulate a slow transformation from episodic to abstract, gist-like memories. We previously demonstrated that sleep shortly after learning improves gist abstraction in healthy volunteers across a one-year retention interval using a visual version of the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm. Here, we investigate the temporal evolution of this effect by testing recognition performance on a similar DRM task immediately after encoding, as well as 1 week and 1 year later. Moreover, we address the role of feature overlap during encoding, using stimulus sets that are either closely related to or more distant from their common prototype. Behavioural data were obtained from N = 16 healthy volunteers in a within-subjects design, where different sets of shapes were learned in separate experimental sessions, followed by consolidation during day-time wakefulness or nocturnal sleep, respectively. Our results indicate high levels of (false) recognition of non-encoded prototypes for all measurement points, including after 1 year. However, in contrast to our previous findings, gist memory was not affected by whether participants slept or stayed awake during the first 12 h after encoding. Comparisons across experiments indicate that the divergent results are due to changes in task demands rendering item and gist memory traces less distinct in the present study. Our results confirm the behavioural persistence of visual gist abstraction across extended intervals. At the same time, they highlight that sleep effects on this process are highly dependent on task demands.
AU  - Lutz, N.D.*
AU  - Himbert, J.*
AU  - Palmieri, J.*
AU  - Kurz, E.M.*
AU  - Raposo, I.*
AU  - Yang, X.*
AU  - Born, J.
AU  - Rauss, K.*
C1  - 74892
C2  - 57700
CY  - 111 River St, Hoboken 07030-5774, Nj Usa
TI  - Long-term visual gist abstraction independent of post-encoding sleep.
JO  - J. Sleep Res.
PB  - Wiley
PY  - 2025
SN  - 0962-1105
ER  - 

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Restless legs syndrome (RLS) is a common sensorimotor disorder, and the most common sleep-related movement disorder with a prevalence of up to 15% in the European and US population. This review addresses key aspects of RLS, focusing on novel data that have or will likely have an impact on clinical practice. These include novel insights into pathophysiology and motor activity during sleep, with a key focus on implications for RLS treatment. Along this line, we discuss the problem of augmentation before introducing new treatment paradigms and insights into new drug targets from genetics. Besides RLS, restless sleep disorder, neck myoclonus, fragmentary myoclonus, propriospinal myoclonus at the wake-sleep transition, and facio-mandibular myoclonus are discussed. This review provides an overview of the most recent insights into sleep-related movement disorders, and of how they are changing clinical practice.
AU  - Stefani, A.*
AU  - Tang, Q.*
AU  - Clemens, S.*
AU  - DelRosso, L.M.*
AU  - García-Borreguero, D.*
AU  - Ferri, R.*
AU  - Frauscher, B.*
AU  - Holzknecht, E.*
AU  - Provini, F.*
AU  - Schormair, B.
AU  - Winkelman, J.W.*
AU  - Högl, B.*
C1  - 75697
C2  - 58140
TI  - Sleep related movement disorders: What's new and changing clinical practice.
JO  - J. Sleep Res.
PY  - 2025
SN  - 0962-1105
ER  - 

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Restless legs syndrome (RLS) is a common neurological disorder in which sensorimotor symptoms lead to sleep disturbances with substantial impact on life quality. RLS is caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors, and Meis homeobox 1 (MEIS1) was identified as the main genetic risk factor. The efficacy of dopaminergic agonists, including dopamine D2 receptor (DRD2) agonists, for treating RLS led to the hypothesis of dopaminergic impairment. However, it remains unclear whether it is directly involved in the disease aetiology and what the role of MEIS1 is considering its developmental and postnatal expression in the striatum, a critical structure in motor control. We addressed the role of MEIS1 in striatal dopaminergic signalling in Meis1+/- mice, a valid animal model of RLS, and in Meis1Drd2-/- mice carrying a somatic null mutation of Meis1 in Drd2+ neurones. Motor behaviours, pharmacological exploration of DRD2 signalling, and quantitative analyses of DRD2+ and DRD1+ expressing neurones were investigated. Although Meis1+/- mice displayed an RLS-like phenotype, including motor hyperactivity at the beginning of the rest phase, no reduction of dopaminoceptive neurones was observed in the striatum. Moreover, the null mutation of Meis1 in DRD2+ cells did not lead to RLS-like symptoms and dysfunction of the DRD2 pathway. These data indicate that MEIS1 does not modulate DRD2-dependent signalling in a cell-autonomous manner. Thus, the efficiency of D2 -like agonists may reflect the involvement of other dopaminergic receptors or normalisation of motor circuit abnormalities downstream from defects caused by MEIS1 dysfunction.
AU  - Cathiard, L.*
AU  - Fraulob, V.*
AU  - Lam, D.D.*
AU  - Torres, M.*
AU  - Winkelmann, J.
AU  - Krezel, W.*
C1  - 62092
C2  - 50644
CY  - 111 River St, Hoboken 07030-5774, Nj Usa
TI  - Investigation of dopaminergic signalling in Meis homeobox 1 (Meis1) deficient mice as an animal model of restless legs syndrome.
JO  - J. Sleep Res.
VL  - 30
IS  - 5
PB  - Wiley
PY  - 2021
SN  - 0962-1105
ER  - 

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Forgetfulness is a common complaint of pregnant women, who also often report impaired nocturnal sleep. Considering sleep's well-known beneficial role in consolidating newly encoded memory content, we hypothesized that pregnant women would display detrimental changes in objective sleep measures and associated memory deficits. We compared the consolidation of declarative as well as procedural memory across sleep in 21 healthy, third-trimester pregnant women versus 20 matched non-pregnant controls. Subjects encoded and were tested on visuospatial and procedural memory tasks before and after, respectively, a night of sleep spent at home. The emergence of gist-based memories was tested with the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm. Sleep was polysomnographically recorded and subjective sleep quality was assessed with questionnaires. Although pregnant in comparison to non-pregnant women reported markedly impaired subjective sleep quality and efficiency, quantitative changes were limited to increases in wakefulness after sleep onset and reductions in rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. Retention of newly learned memory contents, which is believed to reflect sleep-associated memory consolidation, was comparable between groups, as was the formation of gist-based memories. The findings indicate that subjective deteriorations in sleep quality experienced by pregnant women are not necessarily linked to objective impairments. They raise the possibility that sufficient slow wave sleep towards the end of pregnancy allows for normal sleep-related memory consolidation. Although these results were obtained in a small number of pregnant women in very good health and should be corroborated in larger samples, they challenge the assumption of poor sleep and impaired memory as hallmarks of the "pregnancy brain".
AU  - Zinke, K.*
AU  - Lehnert, V.*
AU  - Fritsche, A.
AU  - Preissl, H.
AU  - Hallschmid, M.
C1  - 60179
C2  - 49292
CY  - 111 River St, Hoboken 07030-5774, Nj Usa
SP  - e13204
TI  - Pregnant women do not display impaired memory formation across one night of sleep.
JO  - J. Sleep Res.
VL  - 30
IS  - 3
PB  - Wiley
PY  - 2021
SN  - 0962-1105
ER  - 

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Meis homeobox 1 (Meis1) is a transcription factor functioning in the development of the nervous system and the cardiovascular system. Both common and rare variants within the gene have been associated with restless legs syndrome (RLS), while its association with symptoms of insomnia has also been discovered recently. RLS is associated with sleep disturbances, and while Meis1 haploinsufficiency is one of the most promising strategies for an RLS animal model, sleep phenotyping of Meis1 knockout mice has never been conducted. We report a detailed sleep analysis of heterozygous Meis1 knockout mice and challenge it with pramipexole, a dopamine agonist used in the treatment of RLS. At baseline, the Meis1-haploinsufficient mice had a trend towards lower delta power in the electroencephalogram (EEG) during sleep compared to the wild-type littermates, possibly indicating reduced sleep quality, but not sleep fragmentation. Pramipexole had a sleep disrupting effect in both genotype groups. In addition, it exerted differential effects on the EEG power spectra of the two mouse lines, remarkably elevating the theta power of the mutant mice during recovery more than that of the wild-types. In conclusion, Meis1 haploinsufficiency seems to have only a modest effect on sleep, but the gene may interact with the sleep-disrupting effect of dopamine agonists.
AU  - Salminen, A.V.
AU  - Schormair, B.
AU  - Flachskamm, C.*
AU  - Torres, M.*
AU  - Müller-Myhsok, B.*
AU  - Kimura, M.*
AU  - Winkelmann, J.
C1  - 51506
C2  - 43288
CY  - 111 River St, Hoboken 07030-5774, Nj Usa
TI  - Sleep disturbance by pramipexole is modified by Meis1 in mice.
JO  - J. Sleep Res.
VL  - 27
IS  - 4
PB  - Wiley
PY  - 2018
SN  - 0962-1105
ER  - 

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Lunar periodicity in human biology and behaviour, particularly sleep, has been reported. However, estimated relationships vary in direction (more or less sleep with full moon) if they exist at all, and studies tend to be so small that there is potential for confounding by weekly or monthly cycles. Lunar variation in physical activity has been posited as a driver of this relationship, but is likewise not well studied. We explore the association between lunar cycle, sleep and physical activity in a population-based sample of 1411 Germans age 14-17 years (46% male). Physical activity (daily minutes moderate-to-vigorous activity) was objectively assessed by accelerometry for a total of 8832days between 2011 and 2014. At the same time, time in bed (h) and subjective sleep quality (1-6) were diaried each morning. In models corrected for confounding, we found that lunar phase was not significantly associated with physical activity, subjective sleep quality or time in bed in either sex, regardless of season. Observed relationships varied randomly in direction between models, suggesting artefact. Thus, this large, objectively-measured and well-controlled population of adolescents displayed no lunar periodicity in objective physical activity, subjective sleep quality or time in bed.
AU  - Smith, M.
AU  - Standl, M.
AU  - Schulz, H.
AU  - Heinrich, J.
C1  - 50218
C2  - 42242
SP  - 371-376
TI  - Physical activity, subjective sleep quality and time in bed do not vary by moon phase in German adolescents.
JO  - J. Sleep Res.
VL  - 26
IS  - 3
PY  - 2017
SN  - 0962-1105
ER  - 

TY  - JOUR
AU  - Kemlink, D.*
AU  - Srutkova, Z.*
AU  - Plchova, L.*
AU  - Pavlickova, J.*
AU  - Parizek, A.*
AU  - Sonka, K.*
AU  - Nevsimalova, S.*
AU  - Schormair, B.
AU  - Winkelmann, J.
C1  - 44035
C2  - 36704
CY  - Hoboken
SP  - 225
TI  - Restless legs syndrome in Czech pregnant women: An epidemiological and genetic study.
JO  - J. Sleep Res.
VL  - 23
PB  - Wiley-blackwell
PY  - 2014
SN  - 0962-1105
ER  -