Abstract

Although a positive link between sleep spindle occurrence and measures of post-sleep recall (learning success) is often reported for humans and replicated across species, the test–retest reliability of the effect is sometimes questioned. The largest to date study could not confirm the association, however methods for automatic spindle detection diverge in their estimates and vary between studies. Here we report that in dogs using the same detection method across different learning tasks is associated with observing a positive association between sleep spindle density (spindles/minute) and learning success. Our results suggest that reducing measurement error by averaging across measurements of density and learning can increase the visibility of this effect, implying that trait density (estimated through averaged occurrence) is a more reliable predictor of cognitive performance than estimates based on single measures.

Details

Title
Averaging sleep spindle occurrence in dogs predicts learning performance better than single measures
Author
Iotchev, Ivaylo Borislavov 1 ; Reicher Vivien 2 ; Kovács Enikő 3 ; Kovács Tímea 1 ; Kis, Anna 4 ; Gácsi Márta 2 ; Kubinyi Enikő 1 

 ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Department of Ethology, Budapest, Hungary (GRID:grid.5591.8) (ISNI:0000 0001 2294 6276) 
 ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Department of Ethology, Budapest, Hungary (GRID:grid.5591.8) (ISNI:0000 0001 2294 6276); MTA-ELTE Comparative Ethology Research Group, Budapest, Hungary (GRID:grid.5018.c) (ISNI:0000 0001 2149 4407) 
 ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Department of Ethology, Budapest, Hungary (GRID:grid.5591.8) (ISNI:0000 0001 2294 6276); Research Centre for Natural Sciences, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology, Budapest, Hungary (GRID:grid.425578.9) (ISNI:0000 0004 0512 3755) 
 Research Centre for Natural Sciences, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology, Budapest, Hungary (GRID:grid.425578.9) (ISNI:0000 0004 0512 3755) 
Publication year
2020
Publication date
2020
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20452322
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2474384603
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2020. This work is published under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.