Experts have long suspected that part of the process of turning fleeting short-term memories into lasting long-term memories occurs during sleep. Now, researchers at the RIKEN-MIT Center for Neural Circuit Genetics of MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory have shown that mice prevented from “replaying” their waking experiences while asleep do not remember them as well as mice who are able to perform this function.
The work, which has a profound implication in the century-old search for the purpose of sleep, will be reported in the June 25, 2009 issue of Neuron.
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Research on the sleeping brain has revealed some fascinating stage-dependent interactions between areas involved in formation and storage of long term memories. The study, published by in the the journal Neuron, may also provide a framework for further understanding the role of sleep in memory.
Mammalian sleep occurs in two discrete stages, slow-wave sleep (SWS) and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. One of the many ways in which SWS and REM sleep differ is in the level of synchronous firing in the hippocampus. Previous research has suggested that coordinated activity between the hippocampus?a brain area critical for memory formation where long-term memories are stored?—?may be critical for memory formation.
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