Have you ever tried to recall something just before going to sleep and then wake up with the memory fresh in your mind? While we absorb so much information during the day consciously or unconsciously, it is during shut eye that a lot of facts are dispatched to be filed away or fall into oblivion.

The research team concentrated on a non-REM deep sleep phase (a.k.a. slow-wave sleep) that generally happens throughout the night, in alternation with the REM phase. During slow-wave sleep, groups of neurons firing at the same time generate brain waves with triple rhythms: slow oscillations, spindles, and ripples. Slow oscillations originate from neurons in the cerebral cortex. Spindles come from a structure of the brain called thalamic reticular nucleus and spike around 7-15 per second. Finally, ripples are sharp and quick bursts of electrical energy, produced within the hippocampus, a brain component with an important role in spatial memory.

Scientists believe that the correct timing of these three rhythms acts like a communication channel between different parts of the brains that facilitates memory consolidation.

Scientists at the Center for Cognition and Sociality, within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS), enhanced or reduced mouse memorization skills by modulating specific synchronized brain waves during deep sleep. The study showed that manipulating sleep spindle oscillations at the right timing affects memory. The full description of the mouse experiments, conducted in collaboration with the University of Tüebingen, is published in the journal Neuron. (1)

We want to help the storing of memories.

Because we believe memories are lost.

We want to create things.

Because we believe things are destroyed.

But nothing is ever lost.

And nothing is ever destroyed.

We must stop seeing death.

And we will enjoy eternal life…