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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.
For example, declarative and procedural memory-recall tasks applied over early and late nocturnal sleep, as well as wakefulness controlled conditions, have been shown that declarative memory improves more during early sleep (dominated by SWS) while procedural memory during late sleep (dominated by REM sleep) does so. [101] [102]
Multiple hypotheses explain the possible connections between sleep and learning in humans. Research indicates that sleep does more than allow the brain to rest; it may also aid the consolidation of long-term memories. REM sleep and slow-wave sleep play different roles in memory consolidation. REM is associated with the consolidation of ...
If PKA or protein synthesis inhibition occurs at certain moments during sleep, memory consolidation can be disrupted [citation needed]. In addition, mice with genetic inhibition of PKA have been shown to have long-term memory deficits. [48] Thus, sleep deprivation may act through the inhibition of these protein synthesis pathways.
The neocortex then reviews and processes memories, which moves them into long-term memory. When one does not get enough sleep it makes it more difficult to learn as these neural connections are not as strong, resulting in a lower retention rate of memories. Sleep deprivation makes it harder to focus, resulting in inefficient learning. [129]
Recent studies have also shown that sleep not only helps consolidate memory, but also integrates relational memories. In one study, the participants were tested to see if sleep helped in this aspect (Ellenbogen et al., 2007, as cited in Walker, 2009). The subjects of the experiment were taught five "premise pairs", A>B, B>C, C>D, and D>E.
Once one catches up on sleep, one's mood will often return to baseline or normal. Even partial sleep deprivation can have a significant impact on mood. In one study, subjects reported increased sleepiness, fatigue, confusion, tension, and total mood disturbance, which all recovered to their baseline after one to two full nights of sleep. [56] [57]
Sleep differentially affected the memory consolidation of the two lists, enhancing the memory for the first list more significantly. [7] It has been suggested that the degree of initial learning predicts whether spontaneous recovery shall occur, stating that the better the learning of the A-B associations, the more likely they are to recover ...