The Power of Sleep
New study reveals that brain's coordination between hippocampus and cortex during sleep boosts memory consolidation, offering hope for people with memory impairments
While a good night's sleep is known to be critical for the consolidation of long-lasting memories, so far there has been little evidence regarding the precise processes at work during human sleep. A breakthrough study demonstrated for the first time that long-lasting memories are consolidated in the human brain through communication between the hippocampus and the cerebral cortex during sleep.
Moreover, the researchers found that by inducing deep-brain stimulation during sleep they can improve memory consolidation. They believe intervention during sleep represents a unique approach that can be further developed in the future to provide hope for people with memory impairments such as dementia.
Enhancing Memory Consolidation During Sleep
The unique study, which was published in the leading journal Nature Neuroscience, involved an international collaboration led by Dr. Maya Geva-Sagiv (today at UC Davis).
The study was a collaboration between the laboratories of Prof. Yuval Nir from the Faculty of Medicine, Department of Biomedical Engineering at The Iby and Aladar Fleischman Faculty of Engineering, and Sagol School of Neuroscience at Tel Aviv University, and Prof. Itzhak Fried from the Department of Neurosurgery at UCLA and the Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University.
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