Sleep and synaptic homeostasis.

1. Before the article by Aton et al., there have been no studies with the potential to disprove SHY. Far from it, unless one disqualifies the many studies whose results turned out to support rather than disprove SHY.3 In particular, the studies quoted by Heller, by both us4–6 and others7 found molecular, electrophysiological, and structural evidence that net synaptic strength increases with wake and decreases with sleep. Yet, if the opposite had happened, or had there been no net changes, these very same studies would have proven SHY wrong.

[1]  J. Born,et al.  Odor Cues During Slow-Wave Sleep Prompt Declarative Memory Consolidation , 2007, Science.

[2]  G. Tononi,et al.  Sleep-Dependent Synaptic Down-Selection (I): Modeling the Benefits of Sleep on Memory Consolidation and Integration , 2013, Front. Neurol..

[3]  W. Gan,et al.  Sleep promotes branch-specific formation of dendritic spines after learning , 2014, Science.

[4]  W. Gan,et al.  Sleep contributes to dendritic spine formation and elimination in the developing mouse somatosensory cortex , 2012, Developmental neurobiology.

[5]  Conor Liston,et al.  Glucocorticoids are critical regulators of dendritic spine development and plasticity in vivo , 2011, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[6]  Aneesha K. Suresh,et al.  Sleep promotes cortical response potentiation following visual experience. , 2014, Sleep.

[7]  M. Bear,et al.  Instructive Effect of Visual Experience in Mouse Visual Cortex , 2006, Neuron.

[8]  Joel L. Voss,et al.  Strengthening Individual Memories by Reactivating Them During Sleep , 2009, Science.

[9]  G. Tononi,et al.  Molecular and electrophysiological evidence for net synaptic potentiation in wake and depression in sleep , 2008, Nature Neuroscience.

[10]  C. Heller.  The ups and downs of synapses during sleep and learning. , 2014, Sleep.

[11]  G. Tononi,et al.  Sleep and synaptic renormalization: a computational study. , 2010, Journal of neurophysiology.

[12]  G. Tononi,et al.  Sleep and wake modulate spine turnover in the adolescent mouse cortex , 2011, Nature Neuroscience.

[13]  Giulio Tononi,et al.  Sleep improves the variability of motor performance , 2008, Brain Research Bulletin.

[14]  G. Tononi,et al.  Direct Evidence for Wake-Related Increases and Sleep-Related Decreases in Synaptic Strength in Rodent Cortex , 2010, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[15]  L. Lecea,et al.  Sleep to forget: interference of fear memories during sleep , 2013, Molecular Psychiatry.

[16]  G. Tononi,et al.  Sleep and the Price of Plasticity: From Synaptic and Cellular Homeostasis to Memory Consolidation and Integration , 2014, Neuron.

[17]  Mark F Bear,et al.  Visual Experience Induces Long-Term Potentiation in the Primary Visual Cortex , 2010, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[18]  Nan Bahr.  IT and learning , 2000 .