Memory ReactivationSleepDanceNCT05452733
Toward a Real-time Access to Sleepers' Mental Content
A study testing differences of behavior between sleepwalking and non sleepwalking patient in people with Memory Reactivation and Memory Consolidation, run by Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris at 1 site in France.
Trial summary
Sleep is crucial for global cognitive functioning, but its exact functions and mechanisms are still poorly understood. Cognitive studies of sleep typically rely on linking electrophysiological changes measured during sleep with behavioral and neural changes collected in tasks performed during wakefulness. Read more about this study
- Who is it for?
- Ages 18 to 35 yearsHealthy volunteers can take part
- Conditions the study is for
- Memory Reactivation, Memory Consolidation, Sleepwalking
- What is being tested?
- differences of behavior between sleepwalking and non sleepwalking patient
- Type of treatment
- Lifestyle or therapy programme
- Could I receive a placebo?
- No, everyone receives an active treatment
- How many people
- 40 participants
- Where
- 1 siteFrance
- Study dates
- 31 Mar 2023to 29 Aug 2025
- Phase
- Interventional
- Are there results?
- None posted in the registry
Key requirements
Who can take part, as listed by the sponsor. Only the study team can confirm whether you are eligible, so take this list to your doctor.
- Ages 18 to 35 years
- All sexes
- Healthy volunteers accepted
- Adult
Who may be able to join
- Age between 18-35 y.o
- Written consent
- Affiliated to social security
- Sleepwalking (group patients only)
Who cannot join
- Psychiatric or neurologic disorder
- Sleep disorder except sleepwalking for the patient group
- Surdity
- Pain or physical disability affecting the upper limbs
- Consumption of drugs altering sleep structure
- Subjects under legal protection
Trial locations and contacts
1 site in 1 country.
France1 site
Service des Pathologies du Sommeil, Hôpital Pitié-Salpétrière
Paris, Paris, 75013
About this study
Sleep is crucial for global cognitive functioning, but its exact functions and mechanisms are still poorly understood. Cognitive studies of sleep typically rely on linking electrophysiological changes measured during sleep with behavioral and neural changes collected in tasks performed during wakefulness. What concomitantly happens in the mind of sleeping subjects is often ignored, certainly because it is virtually inaccessible. Yet, major advances in the understanding of human behaviors have resulted from an integrated approach that combines both neural and cognitive measures of their ongoing mental processes. The goal of this study is to provide real-time measures of the cognitive processes occurring within sleep.
To prompt real-time access to the sleeping mind, investigators will use auditory stimulation in people with unique sleep peculiarities: sleepwalkers whose overt behaviours may enable to objectively visualize ongoing cognitive processes during non-REM (NREM) sleep.
Read the detailed description
Investigators aim to offer a quantifiable, real-time measure of memory processing during NREM sleep by using memory-related cues to influence which behaviours sleepwalkers will exhibit. Because sleepwalking is characterized by complex behaviors emerging from NREM sleep, it could provide an observable window into mental activity in NREM sleep. While neuronal memory reactivations have largely been demonstrated in sleeping rodents, evidence for the existence of such reactivations in humans is at best indirect. Here, investigators will use targeted memory reactivation (TMR), a tool that allows to control which individual memories are reactivated on a trial by trial basis. TMR consists in associating sensory cues with a specific learning, then re-applying these cues during subsequent sleep to trigger the reactivation of the corresponding learning. Sleepwalkers will be trained on a modified version of the serial reaction time task: sleepwalkers will perform as fast and accurately as possible a sequence of gestures in response to auditory cues. Investigators goals are to: i) show that playing the auditory cues during NREM sleep triggers a behavioral replay of the learned 'choreography' in sleepwalkers, ii) quantify, with a gesture recognition algorithm, how the sleep gestures differ from the wake ones (speed, accuracy, sequence fidelity), and iii) test whether this evoked replay is accompanied by a congruent dream.
- Conditions
- Memory Reactivation, Memory Consolidation, Sleepwalking
- Being tested
- differences of behavior between sleepwalking and non sleepwalking patient
- Keywords
- sleepwalking, sleep, memory consolidation, reactivation, dream, targeted memory reactivation
- Medical subject headings
- Somnambulism
What participants receive
What participants receive. In a randomised study each person is assigned to one group by chance.
differences of behavior between sleepwalking and non sleepwalking patientBehavioural
movement registry done by camera when low intensity sound are send to patient during sleep.
| Study group | Role | What they receive |
|---|---|---|
| Sleepwalking patient | Experimental | Not described Receives: Behavioral: differences of behavior between sleepwalking and non sleepwalking patient |
| Non sleepwalking patient | Active comparator | Not described Receives: Behavioral: differences of behavior between sleepwalking and non sleepwalking patient |
What is being measured
The primary outcome is the main question the study is designed to answer.
Behavioral reaction
number of behavioral reactivations of the motor sequence following the auditory cues during sleep
Measured: 2 days
Secondary outcomes (3)
Evaluation of targeted memory reactivation (TMR) success in sleepwalkers by movements test
test whether performance is better for movements that have been cued during sleep (vs. uncued ones) in sleepwalkers
Measured: 2 days
Quantification of movements exhibited during sleep
The quantification of movement will be evaluated by combinaison of the reaction time, speed and precision of movements exhibited by sleepwalkers during sleep vs. wakefulness
Measured: 2 days
Determination of the link between dream and sensory cues
Comparison between the number of dreams related to the motor sequence on the 2nd night (after TMR) vs. during the 1st one.
Measured: 2 days
Timeline
From the start of the study to its completion; the mark is today. Estimated dates are the sponsor’s plan.
- First posted11 Jul 2022
- Study start31 Mar 2023
- Primary completion29 Aug 2025
- Study completion29 Aug 2025
Why it stopped: lack of personnel to perform the tests
Resources
- Official record on ClinicalTrials.govThe registry entry this page is built from, with its full change history.
- Other trials for Memory ReactivationStudies of the same condition, open and under way.
- More trials run by Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de ParisThe sponsor's other registered studies.
- What the trial phases meanHow a treatment moves from first tests in people to approval.
More details
For doctors and researchers: how the study is designed, who runs it, and its registry IDs.
Study design
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Phase N/A
- Primary purpose
- Other
- Allocation
- Non-randomised
- Intervention model
- Parallel groups
- Masking
- None (open label)
- Enrolment
- 40 participants (actual)
Sponsor and investigators
- Lead sponsor
- Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris
- Sponsor type
- University, hospital or other
- Responsible party
- Sponsor
- Investigators
- Isabelle Arnulf, MD PhD, Principal investigator, APHPDelphine Oudiette, PhD, Study director, Institut National de la Santé Et de la Recherche Médicale, France
IDs, dates and publications
- ClinicalTrials.gov ID
- NCT05452733
- Sponsor's protocol ID
- APHP220764
- Acronym
- SleepDance
- Status last verified
- Jan 2026
- First submitted
- 17 Jun 2022
- Last updated
- 12 Jan 2026
- Results posted
- No
- Data monitoring committee
- No
- FDA-regulated drug
- No
- FDA-regulated device
- No
- Individual data sharing
- Undecided
Study at a glance
From the registry record, last updated by the sponsor on 12 Jan 2026. Recruitment status is as the sponsor reported it: confirm with the study team.
- Official title
- Toward a Real-time Access to Sleepers' Mental Content
- ClinicalTrials.gov ID
- NCT05452733
- Acronym / sponsor ID
- SleepDance / APHP220764
- Conditions
- Memory Reactivation, Memory Consolidation, Sleepwalking
- Keywords
- sleepwalking, sleep, memory consolidation, reactivation, dream, targeted memory reactivation
- Study type
- Interventional
- Recruitment status
- TerminatedReason stopped: lack of personnel to perform the tests
- Enrolment
- 40 participants (actual)
- Lead sponsor
- Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de ParisUniversity, hospital or other
- Collaborators
- Institut National de la Santé Et de la Recherche Médicale, France
- Study start
- 31 Mar 2023 (actual)
- Primary completion
- 29 Aug 2025 (actual)
- Study completion
- 29 Aug 2025 (actual)
- First posted
- 11 Jul 2022 (actual)
- Results
- Not posted in the source record
Clinical summary
The research question as the sponsor registered it. This describes what the study plans to test, not what it found.
Sleep is crucial for global cognitive functioning, but its exact functions and mechanisms are still poorly understood. Cognitive studies of sleep typically rely on linking electrophysiological changes measured during sleep with behavioral and neural changes collected in tasks performed during wakefulness. What concomitantly happens in the mind of sleeping subjects is often ignored, certainly because it is virtually inaccessible. Yet, major advances in the understanding of human behaviors have resulted from an integrated approach that combines both neural and cognitive measures of their ongoing mental processes. The goal of this study is to provide real-time measures of the cognitive processes occurring within sleep.
To prompt real-time access to the sleeping mind, investigators will use auditory stimulation in people with unique sleep peculiarities: sleepwalkers whose overt behaviours may enable to objectively visualize ongoing cognitive processes during non-REM (NREM) sleep.
Detailed description
Investigators aim to offer a quantifiable, real-time measure of memory processing during NREM sleep by using memory-related cues to influence which behaviours sleepwalkers will exhibit. Because sleepwalking is characterized by complex behaviors emerging from NREM sleep, it could provide an observable window into mental activity in NREM sleep. While neuronal memory reactivations have largely been demonstrated in sleeping rodents, evidence for the existence of such reactivations in humans is at best indirect. Here, investigators will use targeted memory reactivation (TMR), a tool that allows to control which individual memories are reactivated on a trial by trial basis. TMR consists in associating sensory cues with a specific learning, then re-applying these cues during subsequent sleep to trigger the reactivation of the corresponding learning. Sleepwalkers will be trained on a modified version of the serial reaction time task: sleepwalkers will perform as fast and accurately as possible a sequence of gestures in response to auditory cues. Investigators goals are to: i) show that playing the auditory cues during NREM sleep triggers a behavioral replay of the learned 'choreography' in sleepwalkers, ii) quantify, with a gesture recognition algorithm, how the sleep gestures differ from the wake ones (speed, accuracy, sequence fidelity), and iii) test whether this evoked replay is accompanied by a congruent dream.
Study design
- Primary purpose
- Other
- Allocation
- Non-randomised
- Intervention model
- Parallel groups
- Masking
- None (open label)
- Number of arms
- 2
| Arm | Type | Receives |
|---|---|---|
| Sleepwalking patient | Experimental | Behavioral: differences of behavior between sleepwalking and non sleepwalking patient |
| Non sleepwalking patient | Active comparator | Behavioral: differences of behavior between sleepwalking and non sleepwalking patient |
Who may qualify
- Ages
- 18 to 35 years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Accepted
- Age groups
- Adult
Key inclusion criteria (4 listed)
- Age between 18-35 y.o
- Written consent
- Affiliated to social security
- Sleepwalking (group patients only)
Key exclusion criteria (6 listed)
- Psychiatric or neurologic disorder
- Sleep disorder except sleepwalking for the patient group
- Surdity
- Pain or physical disability affecting the upper limbs
- Consumption of drugs altering sleep structure
Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening; this overview does not establish that a patient qualifies. Full inclusion and exclusion criteria.
Interventions
| Intervention | Type | Arms |
|---|---|---|
| differences of behavior between sleepwalking and non sleepwalking patientmovement registry done by camera when low intensity sound are send to patient during sleep. | Behavioural | Non sleepwalking patient, Sleepwalking patient |
Primary outcome
Behavioral reaction
Time frame: 2 days
number of behavioral reactivations of the motor sequence following the auditory cues during sleep
3 secondary outcomes
Evaluation of targeted memory reactivation (TMR) success in sleepwalkers by movements test
Time frame: 2 days
Quantification of movements exhibited during sleep
Time frame: 2 days
Determination of the link between dream and sensory cues
Time frame: 2 days
Results and safety
The study was stopped early (reason given: lack of personnel to perform the tests). Results are not available in the source record.
Research links
- Official record on ClinicalTrials.govLast updated by the sponsor 12 Jan 2026.
- Individual participant dataSharing planned: Undecided
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Women Who Are Victims of Violence: Treatment of PTSD Through Reactivation of Traumatic Memories Using Propranolol
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Referral and contact
AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals. Contact the study team or a site listed below; they decide who can take part. This study is not recruiting at the moment.
Isabelle Arnulf, MD PhD principal investigator
APHP
Delphine Oudiette, PhD study director
Institut National de la Santé Et de la Recherche Médicale, France
1 site in 1 country: see every site and its status.
Questions about this trial
What is this clinical trial studying?
A study testing differences of behavior between sleepwalking and non sleepwalking patient in people with Memory Reactivation and Memory Consolidation, run by Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris at 1 site in France.
The full registered description is in the About this study section and the official record.
Who may be eligible to take part?
The sponsor lists 4 inclusion and 6 exclusion criteria. Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening, so read the full criteria and contact a listed site.
Is this clinical trial currently recruiting?
The record says: stopped early, as of the sponsor's last update on 12 Jan 2026. Status can change between updates, so confirm with the study contact before making plans.
Where is the study taking place?
The record lists 1 site in France. Whether a site is taking part right now should be confirmed with that site. See every site.
What are the possible benefits and risks?
They depend on the study and the treatment, and no study can promise a benefit. The study team explains the known risks during informed consent, before anyone joins; the record itself does not list them.
Are results available for this study?
The study was stopped early (reason given: lack of personnel to perform the tests). Results are not available in the source record.
How can a doctor refer a patient or contact the research team?
The record lists no contact. The official record names the sponsor, who can be asked directly. AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals.
What does the primary outcome measure?
Behavioral reaction (time frame: 2 days). It is what the study was designed to measure, not a finding.
Where can I read the original study information?
Does a listing mean the treatment is approved or proven to work?
No. A listing means the study is registered. It does not show that the treatment is safe, works, or is approved by a regulator.
How often is this information updated?
AzTrials copies changed records from ClinicalTrials.gov every night and reloads the whole registry every week. The sponsor last updated this record on 12 Jan 2026.