1. Neuroscience
Download icon

Promoting subjective preferences in simple economic choices during nap

  1. Sizhi Ai
  2. Yunlu Yin
  3. Yu Chen
  4. Cong Wang
  5. Yan Sun
  6. Xiangdong Tang
  7. Lin Lu
  8. Lusha Zhu  Is a corresponding author
  9. Jie Shi  Is a corresponding author
  1. Peking University, China
  2. Sichuan University, China
Research Article
  • Cited 2
  • Views 2,431
  • Annotations
Cite this article as: eLife 2018;7:e40583 doi: 10.7554/eLife.40583

Abstract

Sleep is known to benefit consolidation of memories, especially those of motivational relevance. Yet it remains largely unknown the extent to which sleep influences reward-associated behavior, in particular, whether and how sleep modulates reward evaluation that critically underlies value-based decisions. Here, we show that neural processing during sleep can selectively bias preferences in simple economic choices when the sleeper is stimulated by covert, reward-associated cues. Specifically, presenting the spoken name of a familiar, valued snack item during midday nap significantly improves the preference for that item relative to items not externally cued. The cueing-specific preference enhancement is sleep-dependent and can be predicted by cue-induced neurophysiological signals at the subject and item level. Computational modeling further suggests that sleep cueing accelerates evidence accumulation for cued options during the post-sleep choice process in a manner consistent with the preference shift. These findings suggest that neurocognitive processing during sleep contributes to the fine-tuning of subjective preferences in a flexible, selective manner.

Data availability

Data and code used for data analysis are publicly available online via Open Science Framework (OSF) at (https://osf.io/9ndhy/).

The following data sets were generated

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Sizhi Ai

    National Institute on Drug Dependence, Peking University, Beijing, China
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  2. Yunlu Yin

    IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Peking University, Beijing, China
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  3. Yu Chen

    National Institute on Drug Dependence, Peking University, Beijing, China
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  4. Cong Wang

    IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Peking University, Beijing, China
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  5. Yan Sun

    National Institute on Drug Dependence, Peking University, Beijing, China
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  6. Xiangdong Tang

    Sleep Medicine Center, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  7. Lin Lu

    National Institute on Drug Dependence, Peking University, Beijing, China
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  8. Lusha Zhu

    IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Peking University, Beijing, China
    For correspondence
    lushazhu@pku.edu.cn
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-8717-6356

  9. Jie Shi

    National Institute on Drug Dependence, Peking University, Beijing, China
    For correspondence
    shijie@bjmu.edu.cn
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-6567-8160

Funding

National Natural Science Foundation of China (31671171)

  • Lusha Zhu

National Natural Science Foundation of China (31630034)

  • Lusha Zhu

National Natural Science Foundation of China (31571099)

  • Jie Shi

National Basic Research Program of China (2015CB856404)

  • Jie Shi

National Basic Research Program of China (2015CB553503)

  • Jie Shi

National Natural Science Foundation of China (81801315)

  • Sizhi Ai

The funders had no role in study design, data collection, and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Human subjects: All participants provided written informed consent. Study procedures were reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee at Peking University.

Reviewing Editor

  1. Michael Breakspear, QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Australia

Publication history

  1. Received: July 30, 2018
  2. Accepted: December 6, 2018
  3. Accepted Manuscript published: December 6, 2018 (version 1)
  4. Version of Record published: December 14, 2018 (version 2)

Copyright

© 2018, Ai et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

Metrics

  • 2,431
    Page views
  • 369
    Downloads
  • 2
    Citations

Article citation count generated by polling the highest count across the following sources: Crossref, PubMed Central, Scopus.

Download links

A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.

Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)

Download citations (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)

Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)

Categories and tags

Research organism

Further reading

    1. Neuroscience

    A transient postnatal quiescent period precedes emergence of mature cortical dynamics

    Soledad Dominguez et al.
    Research Article

    Mature neural networks synchronize and integrate spatiotemporal activity patterns to support cognition. Emergence of these activity patterns and functions is believed to be developmentally regulated, but the postnatal time course for neural networks to perform complex computations remains unknown. We investigate the progression of large-scale synaptic and cellular activity patterns across development using high spatiotemporal resolution in vivo electrophysiology in immature mice. We reveal that mature cortical processes emerge rapidly and simultaneously after a discrete but volatile transition period at the beginning of the second postnatal week of rodent development. The transition is characterized by relative neural quiescence, after which spatially distributed, temporally precise, and internally organized activity occurs. We demonstrate a similar developmental trajectory in humans, suggesting an evolutionarily conserved mechanism that could facilitate a transition in network operation. We hypothesize that this transient quiescent period is a requisite for the subsequent emergence of coordinated cortical networks.

    1. Neuroscience

    A locomotor neural circuit persists and functions similarly in larvae and adult Drosophila

    Kristen Lee, Chris Q Doe
    Research Advance Updated

    Individual neurons can undergo drastic structural changes, known as neuronal remodeling or structural plasticity. One example of this is in response to hormones, such as during puberty in mammals or metamorphosis in insects. However, in each of these examples, it remains unclear whether the remodeled neuron resumes prior patterns of connectivity, and if so, whether the persistent circuits drive similar behaviors. Here, we utilize a well-characterized neural circuit in the Drosophila larva: the moonwalker descending neuron (MDN) circuit. We previously showed that larval MDN induces backward crawling, and synapses onto the Pair1 interneuron to inhibit forward crawling (Carreira-Rosario et al., 2018). MDN is remodeled during metamorphosis and regulates backward walking in the adult fly. We investigated whether Pair1 is remodeled during metamorphosis and functions within the MDN circuit during adulthood. We assayed morphology and molecular markers to demonstrate that Pair1 is remodeled during metamorphosis and persists in the adult fly. MDN-Pair1 connectivity is lost during early pupal stages, when both neurons are severely pruned back, but connectivity is re-established at mid-pupal stages and persist into the adult. In the adult, optogenetic activation of Pair1 resulted in arrest of forward locomotion, similar to what is observed in larvae. Thus, the MDN-Pair1 neurons are an interneuronal circuit – a pair of synaptically connected interneurons – that is re-established during metamorphosis, yet generates similar locomotor behavior at both larval and adult stages.

    1. Neuroscience

    Information flow, cell types and stereotypy in a full olfactory connectome

    Philipp Schlegel et al.
    Research Article Updated

    The hemibrain connectome provides large-scale connectivity and morphology information for the majority of the central brain of Drosophila melanogaster. Using this data set, we provide a complete description of the Drosophila olfactory system, covering all first, second and lateral horn-associated third-order neurons. We develop a generally applicable strategy to extract information flow and layered organisation from connectome graphs, mapping olfactory input to descending interneurons. This identifies a range of motifs including highly lateralised circuits in the antennal lobe and patterns of convergence downstream of the mushroom body and lateral horn. Leveraging a second data set we provide a first quantitative assessment of inter- versus intra-individual stereotypy. Comparing neurons across two brains (three hemispheres) reveals striking similarity in neuronal morphology across brains. Connectivity correlates with morphology and neurons of the same morphological type show similar connection variability within the same brain as across two brains.