03/21/2018
A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP. Is your memory not working as well as it used to? Before you blame it on age consider if you are getting your quota of good sleep. The idea that sleep enhances memory has a long history, but only recently has this hypothesis gained firm empirical support.
Research shows that sleep after motor learning promotes the formation of new dendritic spines in the motor cortex. The brain plays back these actions while we sleep to facilitate their consolidation. Neurons activated during learning of the motor task are reactivated during subsequent non–rapid eye movement sleep, and disrupting this neuronal reactivation prevents spine formation.
These findings indicate that sleep has a key role in promoting learning-dependent synapse formation and maintenance on selected dendritic branches, which may be the key to memory storage.
Yang, G. et al. (2014). Sleep promotes branch-specific formation of dendritic spines after learning Science, 344 (6188), 1173-1178
Photo: Lowland Gorillas, Bronx Zoo, National Geographic, 2010