Sleep helps build long-term memories

Experts have long suspected that part of the process of turning fleeting short-term memories into lasting long-term memories occurs during sleep

Now, researchers at the RIKEN-MIT Center for Neural Circuit Genetics of MIT's Picower Institute

have shown that mice prevented from "replaying" their waking experiences while asleep do not remember them as well as mice who are able to perform this function

The work, which has a profound implication in the century-old search for the purpose of slee

Our work demonstrates the molecular link between post-experience sleep and the establishment of long-term memory of that experience

"Ours is the first study to demonstrate this link between memory replay and memory consolidation. The sleeping brain must replay experiences like video clips before they are transformed from short-term into long-term memories."