Sleep Apnea? Sleep After Learning, And You May Do Better
I always slept with the book under my head before a test (never helped!). But a new study has found that sleep after learning strengthens connections between brain cells and improves memory. Sleep helps consolidate and strengthen new memories, according to newswise.com. "Sleep after learning encourages the growth of the tiny protrusions from brain cells that connect to other brain cells and facilitate the passage of information across synapses, the junctions at which brain cells meet. Moreover, the activity of brain cells during deep sleep, or slow-wave sleep, after learning is critical for such growth," the Web site reports. The study showed for the first time how learning and sleep cause physical changes in the motor cortex, a brain region responsible for voluntary movements. “We’ve known for a long time that sleep plays an important role in learning and memory. If you don’t sleep well you won’t learn well,” says senior investigator Wen-Biao Gan, PhD, pro...