Faculty Profile

Center for Sleep and Cognition, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

My research seeks to describe the nature of cognition during sleep, and to explain the role of sleep in memory and emotional processing. My studies of sleep and memory have provided definitive evidence demonstrating the importance of sleep in learning and memory consolidation. Work in my laboratory has presented the first clear demonstrations that:
1) some forms of memory consolidation are absolutely dependent on post-training sleep
2) access to associative memories is altered during REM sleep
3) memory stabilization and enhancement can both occur "off-line," but in different wake-sleep states
4) stabilized memories in humans can be made labile by reactivation, and subsequently weakened through interference
5) in some cases, naps can provide as much benefit as a full night of sleep
6) specific sleep-dependent consolidation is absent in chronic, medicated schizophrenics and in cocaine addicts in withdrawal.
More recently we have been studying the role of sleep in probabilistic learning and declarative memory, as well as in moral decision making.

Our studies of dreaming have made important breakthroughs in this classically difficult field, and have provided the first demonstrations that:
1) episodic memories are not replayed in dreams
2) hypnagogic dreams are constructed without the help of the hippocampally mediated episodic memory system
3) two hours of sleep alters the content of hypnagogic dreams from near veridical replay of recent events to semantically associated imagery.
Our paper on hypnagogic dreaming published in Science was the first paper in that journal focusing on dreaming since 1968.

Psychology 897f - Biology of Conscious States

Ellenbogen JM, Hulbert JC, Stickgold R, Dinges DF, Stickgold R, Thompson-Schill SL. Interfering with theories of sleep and memory: Sleep, declarative memory and associative interference.
Current Biology. 2006 Jul 11;16(13):1290-4. [PMID: 16824917]

Walker MP, R Stickgold, FA Jolesz, and S-S Yoo. The functional anatomy of sleep-dependent visual skill learning.
Cerebral Cortex. 2005 Nov;15(11):1666-75. Epub 2005 Feb 9. [PMID: 15703253]

Stickgold R. Sleep-dependent memory consolidation.
Nature. 2005 Oct 27;437(7063):1272-8. [PMID: 16251952]

Stickgold R and MP Walker. Memory consolidation and reconsolidation: what is the role of sleep?
Trends Neurosci. 2005 Aug;28(8):408-15. [PMID: 15979164]

Pace-Schott EF, R Stickgold, et al. Cognitive performance by humans during a smoked cocaine binge-abstinence cycle.
American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse. 2005;31(4):571-91. [PMID: 16320435]

Walker MP, R Stickgold, et al. Sleep-dependent motor memory plasticity in the human brain.
Neuroscience. 2005;133(4):911-7. [PMID: 15964485]

Manoach DS, MS Cain, et al. A failure of sleep-dependent procedural learning in chronic, medicated schizophrenia.
Biological Psychiatry. 2004 Dec 15;56(12):951-6. [PMID:15601605]

Walker MP and R Stickgold. Sleep-dependent learning and memory consolidation.
Neuron. 2004 Sep 30;44(1):121-33. [PMID: 15450165]

Jacobs GD, EF Pace-Schott, R Stickgold, and MW Otto. Cognitive behavior therapy and pharmacotherapy for insomnia: a randomized controlled trial and direct comparison.
Arch Intern Med. 2004 Sep 27;164(17):1888-96. [PMID: 15451764]

Cantero JL, M Atienza, JR Madsen, and R Stickgold. Gamma EEG dynamics in neocortex and hippocampus during human wakefulness and sleep.
Neuroimage. 2004 Jul;22(3):1271-80. [PMID: 15219599]

Merabet LB, D Maguire, et al. Visual hallucinations during prolonged blindfolding in sighted subjects.
J Neuroophthalmol. 2004 Jun;24(2):109-13. [PMID: 15179062]

Fosse R, R Stickgold, and JA Hobson. Thinking and hallucinating: reciprocal changes in sleep.
Psychophysiology. 2004 Mar;41(2):298-305. [PMID: 15032995]

Walker MP, T Brakefield, JA Hobson, and R Stickgold. Dissociable stages of human memory consolidation and reconsolidation.
Nature. 2003 Oct 9;425(6958):616-20. [PMID: 14534587]

Walker MP, T Brakefield, et al. Sleep and the time course of motor skill learning.
Learn Mem. 2003 Jul-Aug;10(4):275-84. [PMID: 12888546]

Mednick S, K Nakayama, and R Stickgold. Sleep-dependent learning: a nap is as good as a night.
Nat Neurosci. 2003 Jul;6(7):697-8. [PMID: 12819785]

Walker MP, C Liston, JA Hobson, and R Stickgold. Cognitive flexibility across the sleep-wake cycle: REM-sleep enhancement of anagram problem solving.
Brain Res Cogn Brain Res. 2002 Nov;14(3):317-24. [PMID: 12421655] 

Mednick SC, K Nakayama, et al. The restorative effect of naps on perceptual deterioration.
Nat Neurosci. 2002 Jul;5(7):677-81. [PMID: 12032542]

Walker MP, T Brakefield, et al. Practice with sleep makes perfect: sleep-dependent motor skill learning.
Neuron. 2002 Jul 3;35(1):205-11. [PMID: 12123620] 
 
Stickgold R. EMDR: a putative neurobiological mechanism of action.
J Clin Psychol. 2002 Jan;58(1):61-75. [PMID: 11748597]

Stickgold R, JA Hobson, R Fosse, and M Fosse. Sleep, learning, and dreams: off-line memory reprocessing.
Science. 2001 Nov 2;294(5544):1052-7. [PMID: 11691983]

Stickgold R, A Malia, et al. Brain-mind states: I. Longitudinal field study of sleep/wake factors influencing mentation report length.
Sleep. 2001 Mar 15;24(2):171-9. [PMID: 11247053]  

Stickgold R, L James, and JA Hobson. Visual discrimination learning requires sleep after training.
Nat Neurosci. 2000 Dec;3(12):1237-8. [PMID: 11100141]

Stickgold R, A Malia, et al. Replaying the game: hypnagogic images in normals and amnesics.
Science. 2000 Oct 13;290(5490):350-3. [PMID: 11030656]

Stickgold R, D Whidbee, et al. Visual discrimination task improvement: A multi-step process occurring during sleep.
J Cogn Neurosci. 2000 Mar;12(2):246-54. [PMID: 10771409]

Stickgold R, L Scott, C Rittenhouse, and JA Hobson. Sleep-induced changes in associative memory.
J Cogn Neurosci. 1999 Mar;11(2):182-93. [PMID: 10198133]