Physics, Maths & Chemistry Classes

25.04.2019 - By Dr Rajesh Verma

Students must sleep adequately and properly.

Two regions of our brain are central to store memories: the hippocampus and the neocortex. While the hippocampus is primarily responsible for learning new information and storing it in the short term, the neocortex is able to store large amounts of information for a long time. Lea Himmer, Monika Schönauer and Steffen Gais, of the Institute of Medical Psychology at the University of Tübingen, and their team studied the interactions between these areas of the brain when consolidating new memories and the role played by sleep in this process. The team of researchers used functional neuroimaging to show that repeated repetitions can lead to the establishment of memory traces in the neocortex in a very short time. However, these traces are stable enough only if a sleep phase follows the learning - otherwise, the brain must permanently use the hippocampus to facilitate the long-term storage of new memories. The new study is published in Science Advances.

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In this new study, researchers asked participants to study a list of words that was repeated seven times. While performing this task, their brain activity was recorded by an MRI scanner. Twelve hours later, the participants repeated the task with the words learned and a new list of words. Half of the subjects had slept in the meantime while the other half had remained awake. Repeated practice led to increased involvement of the posterior parietal cortex, a region of the neocortex, in less than one hour. At the same time, the hippocampus has become less and less involved in the process.

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The parietal cortex shows stronger activity for previously learned words compared to new words, even after twelve hours, indicating that these memory traces are stable in the long run." However, the hippocampus remained involved only if the participants slept several hours after the first learning session. If they remained awake, the hippocampus was still needed - as much for the words learned earlier than for the new words. "Our results show that memory processes during sleep go beyond simple repetition." Repeating the material repeatedly may create long-term memory traces, however, permanent storage of this material regardless of sleep of the hippocampus is crucial, "says Lea Himmer.

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In the experiment, sleep had mainly an effect on the hippocampus. "The interactions between the hippocampus and the neocortex are still not well understood," says Steffen Gais, Task Force leader. "The study of this interaction is an important step in the development of current theories on training and consolidation of memory." Identifying the conditions in which memory can be directly stored in the neocortex and the role of the hippocampus in this process is also important for understanding the fundamental mechanisms of learning and memory disorders, he adds.

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