Memories strengthen when you’re asleep

Memories strengthen when you’re asleep

18.07.2021 

While we sleep, the brain produces activation patterns. When two of these patterns gear into each other, previous experiences are reactivated. The stronger the reactivation, the clearer will be our recall of past events, a new study published in Nature Communications has revealed.

Scientists have long known that slow oscillations (SOs) and sleep spindles — sudden half-second to two-second bursts of oscillatory brain activity — play an important role in the formation and retention of new memories. But recently, researchers from the University of Birmingham and Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich discovered that a precise combination of SOs and sleep spindles is vital for opening windows during which memories are reactivated.

“Memory reactivation is specifically bound to the presence of SO-spindle complexes. These results shed new light on the memory function of sleep in humans and emphasise the importance of orchestrated sleep rhythms in strengthening recall,” said study co-author Dr Thomas Schreiner.

Study participants were shown information before taking a nap and the research team closely monitored brain activity during non-rapid eye movement sleep using EEG recordings. Participants were then tested on their memory recall after waking up, allowing the researchers to link the extent of memory reactivation during sleep to memory performance.

— ANI