Augmentation du sommeil paradoxal provoquée par l'acquisition, l'extinction et la réacquisition d'un apprentisageàrenforcement positif

Abstract Twenty male Wistar rats were studied in this experiment. After a period of habituation to water deprivation and recording conditions, effects of that deprivation were controlled. After 3 days of sleep reference measurement, the animals were placed daily in a Skinner ☐ where, for 6 min, they could receive water by pressing a bar. Immediately after these learning sessions, sleep phases were measured during a 3 h recording period. We obserced a paradoxical sleep ration increase after the second and third sessions of learning and a return to reference level in the fourth and fifth sessions. Extinction and relearning were then studied on 11 of the animals. Each of these situations was followed by an increase in the paradoxical sleep ratio after the first session and a return to reference level on the following days. These results reinforce the hypothesis of an important role of paradoxical sleep in information processing.