Sleeping & Memory

Sleep has been known to play a part in the formation of memories, but how it happens has been a mystery — until now. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, have found a molecular explanation for changes in the sleeping brain that promote the formation of memories, according to a study in the journal Neuron. Marcos Frank, assistant professor of neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, told ScienceDaily that they have found that biochemical changes simply don't happen in animals that are awake. "[W]hen the animal goes to sleep it's like you’ve thrown a switch, and all of a sudden, everything is turned on that's necessary for making synaptic changes that form the basis of memory formation. It's very striking." Those "synaptic changes" involve the rearrangement of neural connections in response to life experiences, which the team theorizes is the "machinery of memory." The team's research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Sleep Foundation and L'Oreal USA.