Deep Sleep Solidifies Your Memory

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The power of sleep may stretch far beyond curing tiredness. According to researchers, information acquired while one is awake is actively altered, restructured and strengthened during sleep. Thus, there may be evidence that spatial memories are consolidated during deep sleep.

Because sleep and memory are highly complex topics, exploring the consolidation process was somewhat of a challenge. Therefore, in order to gather their data, researchers asked a group of volunteers to first learn the layout of a virtual town of a computer game. Afterward, they were tested on their knowledge of the town and challenged to quickly find routes to specific locations in the town. Researchers divided the volunteers into three groups:

• Group one: Underwent training in the virtual town and had their brains scanned during testing while awake
• Group two: Underwent training and testing and had their brains scanned while they slept
• Group three: Did not undergo any training and had their brains scanned

It was discovered that the activity level in the brain's learning center (hippocampus) was linked with the improvement in memory performance. In fact, when comparing group one to group three, researchers found that group one showed greater activity in their hippocampus.

Also, group two showed greater activity in the hippocampus during sleep, compared to group three. This proves that the gain in post-sleep performance depends on the level of non rapid eye movement (NREM) brain activity during sleep.

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