Neuroscientists at the University of Alberta have identified a mechanism that may help build memories during deep sleep. In a study published last month in eNeuro, the researchers focused on the role of the nucleus reuniens, an area of the brain that connects two other brain structures involved in creating memories and may co-ordinate their...
Tag: <span>memories</span>
A new discovery: How our memories stabilize while we sleep
CNRS Scientists at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Biology (CNRS/Collège de France/INSERM)[1] have shown that delta waves emitted while we sleep are not generalized periods of silence during which the cortex rests, as has been described for decades in the scientific literature. Instead, they isolate assemblies of neurons that play an essential role in long-term memory formation. These...
The Military Discovered A Way To Boost Soldiers’ Memories, And We Tried It
An experiment funded by the U.S. military meant to sharpen soldiers’ minds for the battlefield has found a way to improve memory: by zapping subjects’ brains with tiny bursts of electricity during sleep. In a multi-year study at the University of New Mexico, volunteers received a fraction of 9-volt battery’s worth of electrical stimulation to...
Sleep frees up the hippocampus for new memories
by Universitaet Tübingen Two regions of our brain are central for storing memories: the hippocampus and the neocortex. While the hippocampus is primarily responsible for learning new information and its short-term storage, the neocortex is able to store large amounts of information for a long time. Lea Himmer, Dr. Monika Schönauer and Professor Steffen Gais of the Institute of Medical Psychology at the...
Researchers track the birth of memories
How and when the ability to form and store memories arises are topics of great interest to neuroscientists. Now Yale researchers have identified three distinct stages in brain development that occur before episodic memories can form. Credit: stock.adobe.com Yale scientists measured brain activity in the hippocampus of newborn rats and found at the beginning of...