We have all heard it before about the overwhelming importance sleep has on our health. It has been revealed in countless of studies and has become common knowledge in every culture throughout the world.
There is even a substantial growing “sleep industry” that includes the marketing of products such as special mattresses and bedding materials, eye and ear coverings, black-out shades, sound machines, sleep apps and a host of other tech oriented tracking devices. Not to mention, the medical procedures and sleep studies necessary to help diagnose those with apnea, jaw clenching, teeth misalignments and soft palette problems that prevent many people from getting into a healthy restful state. Some of the issues like jaw clenching are due to daily stress. The inability to sleep well creates more daily stress, impairs productivity, creating more anxiety which makes the problem worse. Getting good and ample amount of consistent sleep can make a world of difference in how we perform throughout our lives. Sleep issues can be associated with many psychiatric conditions and neurological disorders too.
Our bodies are in a constant state of growth, adaption and learning. Both while we are awake and at sleep. In fact, much of our learning and repair takes place during sleep. This is a key reason why we need to sleep well. We are designed to operate with and without daylight.
The mystery of how new experiences get processed while we are asleep remains a puzzle that neuroscientists, like Anna Schapiro, assistant professor in the Department of Psychology, at the University of Pennsylvania, draw new insights into. “ We’ve known for a long time that useful learning happens during sleep. You encode new experiences while you’re awake, you go to sleep, and when you wake up your memory has somehow been transformed.”
What role do the different stages of sleep play in the formation of memories?
In recent research that was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, showed how during the cycle between slow-wave and rapid eye movement (REM), (which happens 5 times per night), the hippocampus teaches the neocortex the new information and transforms the fleeting information into solid lasting memory.
The team of Schapiro, Penn PhD. student Dhairyya Singh, and Kenneth Norman of Princeton University, drew their findings from a neural network computational model they built.
The model simulates learning and memory functions which are composed in the hippocampus, the center for formation of new memories, episodic information, and the neocortex, responsible for higher cognition, permanent memory and language. The study involved simulated sleep in participants. The researchers watched and recorded data in those specific brain region activation levels to analyze neuronal patterns.
Schapiro said, “ This is not just a model of learning in local circuits in the brain. It’s how one brain region can teach another brain region during sleep, a time when there is no guidance from the external world. It’s also a proposal for how we learn gracefully over time as our environment changes.”
The study revealed that during the non-REM sleep, these two regions connect and is when the hippocampus teaches the neocortex. It is during the REM phase when the neocortex reactivates the new information into more permanent long-term memory.
They found that alternating between the two stages of sleep was of great importance for memory formation. When the neocortex doesn’t have enough time to replay its own information it somehow gets overwritten. So both stages of sleep are of equal importance for the other to perform optimally.
There now needs to be more research from other populations of adults with unhealthy sleeping habits as well as children. Who require different sleeping amounts than adults.
This new model simulation will provide a method to move in many directions to study how sleep patterns change throughout a lifetime. It will offer valuable insight into psychiatric disorders, who’s many symptoms include sleep disturbances.
They now have a deeper understanding of sleep patterns from this model. They believe it will bring powerful implications for offline learning and memory processing of AI systems as well.
Imagine, all of this from taking a closer look into how the body really works when it is at rest. Our main operating system may be in sleep mode, but the pilot light is always on.
-A Balanced Brain is a Better Brain for a Happier Life-