Recent research shows that memory can be enhanced while sleeping.
Sleep is vital for the functioning of the mind, to the point that sleep deprivation can be a trigger for pathologies. In addition to the various activities that the brain performs while we sleep, such as managing memories, recent research shows that memory can be enhanced during sleep.
Perhaps in the near future, sleeping will also serve to learn and memorize new things and wake up with information that we did not have before going to bed.
Sleep for mental health
In an article on my blog, I comment on how important sleep is to manage memories and neuron activity. It is essential to ensure the proper functioning of the mind. Many dysfunctions related to attention, language, reasoning, decision-making, learning, and memory are the result of sleep deprivation. This does not mean that the dream increases our intelligence, nor the capacities of the mind.
However, there are effective innovative techniques to boost awareness when we are awake, such as drugs, brain stimulation, or meditation practices. Why not find other strategies to stimulate memory during sleep?
Stimulate awareness while sleeping
The new revolutionary strategies try to boost memory and even learn new things during the sleep phase. To do this, they electrochemically manipulate the brain to reactivate memory, stimulate specific brain oscillations of sleep, and use systems to increase the production of neurotransmitters, those chemical molecules that neurons produce to communicate with each other.
For this, two strategies are proposed:
- Optimize sleep while learning. For example, taking short naps before learning new information increases the acquisition of new memory circuits. The same goes for consolidating fresh, recently acquired memories.
- More intriguing is that memory can also be increased by directly manipulating the brain during sleep. For this, manipulations of neurotransmission systems or oscillations of the brain are used. It would be an induced learning.
Induce new learning through smell
A group of German researchers developed a fascinating study that showed that memories of object locations can be reactivated during sleep by exposing people to specific odors associated with them.
To do this, the participants learned the location of things associated with a smell. Subsequently, the participants were re-exposed to these scents during the slow wave sleep phase, while other participants were not exposed. The results showed that people exposed to odors while sleeping remembered the location of those objects better. However, as shown in another work , curiously this strategy only worked in adults and not in children.
Learn during nap
A new study carried out at the University of Bern (Switzerland) has achieved that a group of participants learned new words during their sleep
To do this, the volunteers listened through headphones to a series of words in pairs (real and invented) that were said to them while taking a nap. At the same time, brain waves were monitored by electroencephalograms. When they woke up, they were able to establish correlations of the pairs of words that they had heard while they slept.
In addition, the researchers showed that effective learning required listening to take place during deep sleep, in which the recordings were slow-wave just before awakening.
The future of these therapies is fascinating and very promising. This would imply that our brain would be on the lookout for new learning even while we sleep.
Who knows if you could be sleeping peacefully while your brain is stimulated instead of studying at night on the eve of an exam?
