Without sleep, we cannot create new memories; most of us already know this. But the fact of taking a short nap, resting without falling into the dream state, is enough to memorize -after learning- in great detail. This is suggested by a new study published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports.
And it is that sleep “blocks” the mechanisms of our brain to forget, reduce the neurotransmitter dopamine and, therefore, facilitate the formation of memory.
Could a quiet resting state be so beneficial for memory? A new study, conducted jointly by Michael Craig, a researcher at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, UK, and Michaela Dewar, a research leader and assistant professor at the same university, suggests that it does.
“Recent research suggests that the memory system strengthens new and weak memories by reactivating them, ” explains Craig.
According to the findings, “this seems especially true during sleep and quiet rest, when we are not busy assimilating new sensory information,” the authors clarify.
In addition, the new research suggests not only that a quiet rest period helps us remember new things, but that rest is crucial to retaining the finest details.
The experts designed a memory test to assess the ability to retain specific information. They asked 60 young men and women, ages 21 , on average, to look at a set of photos. They were asked to discern between “old” and “similar” photos. If the participants’ ability to retain nuances was good, they would say that the photos were “similar.”
“However,” explains Craig, “if such detailed memories are not stored, subjects should miss the subtle differences in similar photos and mistake them for ‘old’ photos.”
“Younger adults who rested quietly in the minutes after the photo slideshow fared better noticing subtle differences in similar photos ,” says Craig. Suggesting that these participants stored more detailed memories, compared to those who did not rest.
“This new finding provides the first evidence that a brief period of quiet rest can help us retain more detailed memories ,” says Craig.
Researchers believe that silent rest is beneficial because it favors the strengthening of new memories in the brain, possibly by supporting their automatic reactivation, although the mechanisms behind this surprising phenomenon remain a mystery.
“We do not know exactly how this strengthening of memory related to rest works. Specifically, it remains unknown if silent rest only allows us to retain more information, or if it also helps us to retain more detailed memories”, clarifies the scientist.
Reference: Michael Craig & Michaela Dewar. Rest-related consolidation protects the fine detail of new memories. Scientific Reports volume 8, Article number: 6857 (2018) DOI: 10.1038 / s41598-018-25313-y
