Abstract
Circadian rhythms shape the temporal organization of sleep and wakefulness and evolve throughout the adult lifespan, leading to higher sleep-wake cycle fragmentation with ageing. The increasing prevalence of daytime napping represents a visible manifestation of such fragmentation and has been suggested to forecast age-related cognitive decline. Here, we assessed the impact of napping on functional brain correlates of performance on a Sternberg working memory (WM) task using functional magnetic resonance imaging in 60 healthy older individuals, prospectively recruited with respect to their napping habits (39 females, age: 59-82y). As compared to non-nappers, nappers showed reduced hemispheric asymmetry in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC, p
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
Funder Information Declared
This study was supported by the European Research Council (ERC, ERC-StG‐COGNAP) under the European Unions Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (Grant Agreement No. 757763). This study was also supported by the Fonds National de la Recherche ScientifiqueFNRS under Grant nr T.0220.20 and by research grant from the University of Liège. C. S. and G. V. are research associates and M.De., M.Do. and S.D. received PhD grants from the Fonds de la Recherche ScientifiqueFNRS, Belgium.
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