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Young woman asleep over study materials. The relationship between sleep and memory has been studied since at least the early 19th century.Memory, the cognitive process of storing and retrieving past experiences, learning and recognition, [1] is a product of brain plasticity, the structural changes within synapses that create associations between stimuli.
Some electrophysiological studies have shown that neuronal activity patterns found during a learning task before sleep are reactivated in the brain during sleep. [86] This, along with the coincidence of active areas with areas responsible for memory have led to the theory that sleep might have some memory consolidation functions.
After sleep, there is increased insight. This is because sleep helps people to reanalyze their memories. The same patterns of brain activity that occur during learning have been found to occur again during sleep, only faster. One way that sleep strengthens memories is by weeding out the less successful connections between neurons in the brain.
REM sleep, also known as paradoxical sleep, represents a smaller portion of total sleep time. It is the main occasion for dreams (or nightmares), and is associated with desynchronized and fast brain waves, eye movements, loss of muscle tone, [20] and suspension of homeostasis. [21]
One early study into neurochemical influences on sleep and memory was conducted with cats and demonstrated that sleep deprivation increased brain protein synthesis. There is evidence that these altered levels of proteins could increase the excitability of the central nervous system, thus increasing the susceptibility of the brain to other ...
The former was predicted by sleep spindles over SWS, which discriminates the memory processes during sleep as well as facilitating emotional memory consolidation. [17] Acetylcholine plays an essential role in hippocampus-dependent memory consolidation. An increased level of cholinergic activity during SWS is known to be disruptive to memory ...
Non-rapid eye movement sleep is known for its beneficial effect on memory consolidation, especially for declarative memory (while procedural memory improvement is more associated with REM-sleep), [26] even if establishing a clear-cut distinction between stages' influence on type of learning may not be possible. [27]
In fact, many studies have found a bidirectional relationship between stress and sleep. This means that sleep quality can affect stress levels, and stress levels can affect sleep quality. Sleep change depends on the type of stressor, sleep perception, related psychiatric conditions, environmental factors, and physiological limits. [5] [6] [4] [7]