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Very proud to finally show the core project of my PhD thesis, under the amazing supervision of @tschreiner.bsky.social. Many thanks as well to @tobiasstaudigl.bsky.social for his collaboration!

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This proves that respiration acts as an endogenous pacemaker that gates memory consolidation. It structures the specific windows in which memory reactivation can effectively unfold. Breathing is truly a bodily rhythm that helps coordinate our mind! (8/8)

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This delayed reactivation was also coupled to an endogenous SO-spindle complex that occurred in the late time-window and showed a similar high-quality coupling to the original in-phase events. Why would then antiphase cues show worse memory performance? Check the preprint to find out more! (7/8)

Decision values increased after the SO-spindle complexes found in a later time window of the same antiphase trial

TOP: coupling between spindles and SO phase of early and late SO-spindle complexes

BOTTOM: comparison between late SO-spindle complexes from antiphase cues and the original SO-spindle complexes from preferred-phase cueing.

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Despite both cues triggering memory reactivation, antiphase cues showed a reactivation window delayed by ~2 seconds. Remarkably, this "late" reactivation fell into the exact same respiratory phase as the original in-phase cues' window. It seems the brain was waiting for the optimal state! ⏰ (6/8)

Both cues elicited memory reactivation but at different times from the coupled SO-spindle trough. Interestingly, this delay aligned the period of reactivation for antiphase cues to match the original one from preferred-phase (in-phase) cueing.

Across participants, the respiratory phase during memory reactivation was the same for both in- and antiphase.

It wasn't about the amount of activity—both conditions elicited the same rate of SOs, spindles and SO-spindle complexes. Instead, it was about the quality: in-phase cues promoted significantly more precise spindle alignment to SO up-states through phase-amplitude coupling. (5/8)

Following cue onset, preferred-phase cues show a higher (SO) Phase - (Spindle) Amplitude Coupling as compared to antiphase cueing. This difference is stronger in frontal channels.

By binning spindle occurrances to SO phase, we see that the difference in PAC falls in the up-state of the SO (0 rad)

We found that in-phase cueing significantly enhanced associative memory performance the next morning compared to antiphase cueing. Just shifting the cue relative to the breath changed how well people remembered. Next thing we did was examining why this happened. (4/8)

Memory performance was enhanced for preferred-phase cues as compared to antiphase cues. Memory performance is calculated by dividing post- with pre-sleep performance (100% means no memory change).

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In this study, we used closed-loop Targeted Memory Reactivation (TMR) to deliver audio cues to 25 participants during NREM sleep. These cues were precisely timed to hit either the participant's "preferred" respiratory phase (where SO-spindles cluster; in-phase) or the opposite "antiphase." (3/8)

a) Paradigm of the experiment
d) Extracted preferred-phases from the adaptation nap (and their respecitve antiphase)

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Our previous work shows that sleep oscillations (slow oscillations & spindles) are coupled to respiration, with both events clustering at specific phases of the breathing cycle. However, whether this coupling is functionally relevant for memory consolidation has remained unknown —until now. (2/8)

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Thomas Schreiner @tschreiner.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Summer Preprint Alert 🔥🚨 Breathing isn't just for oxygen; it’s a rhythmic pacemaker for the sleeping brain. Our new preprint shows that the respiratory cycle actually gates memory reactivation during NREM sleep! 🧠😴💨 👇🧵(1/8)

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Reposted by Esteban

Can MEG provide a non-invasive window onto human ripple physiology during sleep? Our new preprint suggests it can. Led by the fantastic @fabian31415.bsky.social. Many thanks to our collaborators @olejensen.bsky.social , @doellerlab.bsky.social , and @tobiasstaudigl.bsky.social #Neuroskyence

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Reposted by Esteban

Tobias Staudigl @tobiasstaudigl.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

📢 New paper out in @nathumbehav.nature.com: we identify a previously undescribed fast thalamic oscillation (~19–45 Hz) in rare intracranial human recordings that appears specifically during wakefulness and REM sleep — but disappears during NREM sleep. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

nature.com

Thalamic oscillations distinguish natural states of consciousness in humans | Nature Human Behaviour

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Tobias Staudigl @tobiasstaudigl.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

📣 In meiner Arbeitsgruppe (LMU München) ist eine PhD-Stelle zu besetzen. Gesucht werden motivierte Bewerber:innen mit Interesse an experimenteller kognitiver Neurowissenschaft. Bewerbungsfrist: 10.08.2026. Bewerbungen bitte per Email. Mehr Infos hier: job-portal.lmu.de/jobposting/f...

job-portal.lmu.de

Doktorand / Doktorandin (m/w/d)

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Reposted by Esteban

Fabian Schwimmbeck @fabian31415.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Can we study MTL ripples non-invasively? New preprint! We show that source-resolved MEG tracks ripple-like activity during sleep that: • localizes to the MTL • follows the canonical SO–spindle hierarchy • matches an iEEG benchmark • indexes memory reactivation www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

biorxiv.org

Non-invasive tracking of ripple-like activity during human sleep using MEG

Hippocampal ripples are considered a key mechanism of sleep-dependent memory consolidation. In humans, however, their direct investigation has relied on invasive recordings from patients with epilepsy...

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Reposted by Esteban

SfN Journals @sfnjournals.bsky.social · 24/12/2025

#JNeurosci: Tarrasó et al. explored how breathing impacts behavioral and neural representations of memory recall in people. They found exhaling shapes two neural signatures for memory recollection to influence the strength of personal memories. doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1221-25.2…

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Fabian Schwimmbeck @fabian31415.bsky.social · 18/01/2026

How are memories consolidated during sleep? Excited to share another preprint: hippocampal SWRs route memory content to the cortex via interregional co-reactivation of concept cells, optimized by slow-oscillation–spindle coupling. With the great @tschreiner.bsky.social @humansingleneuron.bsky.social

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Fabian Schwimmbeck @fabian31415.bsky.social · 13/01/2026

How does the brain replay memories during sleep? Excited to share our new preprint, the outcome of an extensive effort led by Johannes Niediek, showing that reactivation of human concept neurons reflects memory content rather than event sequence.

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Teresa Berther @teresaberther.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

Thanks for the warm welcome! Very excited to share this and hope it can be helpful to people in the field

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Reposted by Esteban

Thomas Schreiner @tschreiner.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

🚀 Excited to share our lab’s contributions at #ICON2025 in Porto! Catch talks & posters from @aprilzhao.bsky.social @asanchezcorzo.bsky.social @fabian31415.bsky.social @estebanbt.bsky.social

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Thomas Schreiner @tschreiner.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

Excited to share our new study on how respiration modulates neural dynamics during successful memory retrieval—led by @estebanbt.bsky.social, alongside the exceptional team of @fabian31415.bsky.social, @maritpetzka.bsky.social, @tobiasstaudigl.bsky.social, and @bstaresina.bsky.social. 👇

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Altogether, our findings unveiled the role of respiration as a pacemaker during memory retrieval, modulating the neural aspects of successful recall and their consequent behavioral response. (7/8)

Finally, we showed that respiration does not only coordinate α/ß power and memory reactivation separately, but also their interplay. Exclusively in remembered trials, stronger power desynchronizations led to higher memory decodability, again before exhalation troughs. (6/8)

We further demonstrate that respiration has an impact in concomitant memory reactivation, with memory decodability increasing just before exhalation troughs. Additionally, the coupling strength between memory reactivation and respiration across trials was associated with memory performance. (5/8)

Then, we checked that respiration impacts memory retrieval: trials where participants inhaled during cue presentation and subsequently exhaled present better memory performance. Similarly, we examined its modulation of the EEG, showing α/ß power decreases along the respiratory cycle. (4/8)

INHP = inhalation peak (i.e., inhalation-to-exhalation transition)
EXHT = exhalation trough (i.e., exhalation-to-inhalation transition)

First, we identified the key signatures of successful memory retrieval. We showed a stronger desynchronization of the α/ß band in remembered vs. not remembered trials, and memory decodability happening after cue onset. (3/8)

(Top) Time-frequency representation of remembered vs. not remembered trials locked to cue onset.

(Bottom) Results from a timepoint-to-timepoint classification, showing memory reactivation after cue onset.

Past evidence showed that respiration has an impact in memory retrieval. However, the neural modulation by which respiration leads to an effect in memory recall remains unknown. Here, we assess this issue by analyzing EEG and respiratory recordings from participants performing a memory task. (2/8)