The potential to adapt our behavior in response to environmental demands relies on our ability to generate and update memories of relevant information. After learning, memories undergo consolidation, a process that strengthens memory traces and transforms them into stable, long-lasting forms. On a cellular level, learning triggers rapid posttranslational modifications, such as the synthesis of plasticity-related proteins, facilitating synapse formation and maturation. On the circuit level, various brain areas form networks crucial for learning and memory. The most studied is the one involving the hippocampus, neocortex, and limbic nuclei, which are essential for memory consolidation. According to system consolidation theory, memories are initially encoded by the hippocampus and later transferred to the neocortex. This idea has been backed by studies that reveal coordination between hippocampal reactivations and cortical oscillations during sleep.
Causal evidence has shown that hippocampal-cortical coupling participates in memory stabilization during sleep. When memories become integrated into a preexisting network, they can associate with previously formed mnemonic representations. This allows new encoding and prior knowledge to interact with one another in a process known as memory integration, where active memories influence each other. The presence of two facing processes, ie. memory interference and memory enhancement, favors a dynamic update of prior knowledge. Consistently, sleep can enhance memory integration across multiple stimuli, adding new knowledge into existent cognitive frameworks or schema.
Normal aging and pathological conditions, such as Alzheimer's disease, can lead to alterations in sleep patterns, and impact the balance between memory integration and interference. For this reason, understanding how the brain integrates memories in a previously existent network during memory consolidation is one of the most intriguing challenges of modern behavioral neuroscience.
The goal of the present Research Topic is to highlight the latest findings related to memory consolidation and how memories are integrated into a previously established cognitive framework. The Topic will focus on articles that address memory consolidation across models and disciplines. and at every level of analysis (cellular, circuit, behavioral). This Research Topic welcomes reviews, original research articles, opinions, and perspectives that seek to increase our understanding of how memory consolidation in the awake and sleeping brain can stabilize and integrate memories. Also, articles focused on understanding or developing critical ideas regarding the integration or interference between memories that share partially common networks, and how this interaction can become maladaptive in the context of a pathological brain circuit. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to, the following themes:
● Molecular mechanisms and circuits involved in memory consolidation. ● Role of sleep on memory consolidation and integration of memories to prior knowledge. ● Contributions of inhibitory control and configural encoding as mechanisms of memory interaction. ● Modulation of memory integration and interference by normal and pathological aging.
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