The brain is really amazing. Hundreds of researchers work around this organ to try to unravel its functioning and thus cope with, for example, neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s. One of the latest research carried out at UCLA, the University of California, has discovered that, while we sleep, our brain behaves as if it were remembering something.
To reach this conclusion, Professor Mayank R. Mehta’s team simultaneously measured the activity of neurons in different parts of the brain during memory formation. In this way they were able to determine which parts of the organ were activated and deactivated in the different phases. In fact, they measured this activity in three essential parts of the brain: the neocortex, the hippocampus, and the entorhinal cortex.
And it was precisely in this last place that scientists discovered a novel fact that can contribute significantly to neuroscience. Until now, previous studies had confirmed the importance of the “dialogue” between the neocortex and the hippocampus in the process of memory formation during sleep. Now, thanks to this new research, it has been shown that the entorhinal cortex that connects these two regions also plays a very important role.
New and surprising results
As Mehta himself explains, “the results are completely new and surprising. In fact , memory work occurs in the entorhinal cortex even under the effects of anesthesia .” This study sheds light on how sleep deprivation affects health, memory and learning. As the same researcher points out, “when you go to sleep, even in a dark and silent room without sensory information, the brain continues to be very active.” Moreover, by focusing on the entorhinal cortex, ” when the neocortex is inactivated, the neurons of the inner entorhinal cortex remain active, as if they were remembering recently lodged in the neocortex, ” explains Mehta, in a phenomenon known as persistence of spontaneous activity.
But in addition, according to the researchers, this period of mental memory of entorhinal neurons lasted a lot in time. While normally brain activity changes within milliseconds, in this case, even under anesthesia, this persistent activity lasted for more than a minute.
In the mouth of Mehta, principal investigator of the project, “it is a completely different way of thinking about the consolidation of memory “, noting that “we have found a new player involved in this process and that has a huge impact”.
