How Targeted Memory Reactivation Promotes the Selective Strengthening of Memories in Sleep

Over the last ten years, scientists have developed a method called targeted memory reactivation (TMR) for selectively strengthening memories during sleep. Prior to this, memory manipulation during sleep was at most a plot device in science fiction movies, but a large corpus of studies now demonstrates that TMR is both reliable and effective. TMR studies hypothesize that this method taps into normal consolidation mechanisms that require the repeated replay of memories during sleep. This idea has recently been supported by several new studies demonstrating that TMR upregulates the reactivation of cued memories, and that such upregulation predicts subsequent memory performance. This new body of work provides a unique window onto many properties of memory reactivation and helps to close the gap between our understanding of replay in rodents, where it has been visualised at the neural level for many years, and humans, where such studies are only just starting to become possible. We will discuss this new literature and highlight the vast potential of these new methods for future research.