Thursday, May 1, 2008

Quality of Sleep = Memory storage

the Belgian study shows that getting a good night’s sleep the night after learning a new fact has a direct impact on the transfer process between the hippocampus and the medial prefrontal cortex.
clipped from physorg.com

Quality of Sleep Determines Where the Brain Stores Memories

Brain fMRI after six months of a subject who was allowed to sleep the night after learning the word pairs. Correct word recall activates the mPFC and the occipital cortex but there is no longer significant activity in the hippocampus. Image credit: S ...

As time passes, our memories are transferred to different parts of the brain in order to ideally store our past experiences. While scientists have known that sleep plays an important role in helping consolidate memories, a new study investigates the role of sleep a step further, and shows how one night of sleep can lead to changes in brain activity six months after an event has occurred.
Their research shows that a good night’s sleep after learning word pairs enhances memory processing in the hippocampus, and also induces information transfer between the hippocampus and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). This transfer serves to consolidate memories, helping new memories become stable and immune to interfering stimuli.
Our work shows how the development of a trace left by new memories depends on sleep
This is the first time we could confirm in humans a number of predictions based on animal research.
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