Reminder abolishes impairment of learning induced by paradoxical sleep retardation

Rats were submitted to one daily trial in a relatively complex maze. When sleep was delayed (by the water tank technique) for 180 min after each trial, learning was impaired. A reminder treatment (90 sec exposure to contextual cues) immediately before each trial, counteracted the effects of sleep deprivation. The reminder did not in itself contain sufficient information to facilitate performance of non sleep delayed animals. These results suggest that a retrieval failure is involved in memory impairment caused by post-learning paradoxical sleep deprivation.