Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is strongly linked to memory consolidation deficits, yet the neural mechanisms by which OSA disrupts memory consolidation remain poorly understood. Clarifying these mechanisms is crucial for identifying early biomarkers and developing targeted interventions to mitigate OSA-related cognitive decline. This study used a within-subject pre-sleep versus post-sleep design in healthy volunteers, comparing normal sleep with simulated OSA (via overnight airflow restriction) while measuring behavioral performance and EEG during visuospatial and verbal memory consolidation tasks. Results revealed that normal sleep produced significant post-sleep behavioral gains, enhanced representational similarity (RSA), strengthened long-range functional connectivity, and increased theta-gamma phase-amplitude coupling (PAC) with optimized phase preference. Simulated OSA abolished these improvements or even caused deterioration, accompanied by reduced RSA, weakened connectivity, and diffuse PAC patterns. These multi-level findings provide mechanistic insights for future analyses of OSA-related cognitive impairments.