One of the basic functions of sleep is to store and consolidate what we have learned during the day , the new knowledge. Science has been investigating for decades how to intervene in this process to strengthen memory , and now a group of researchers from the University of North Carolina, in the USA, has managed to improve one of its modalities: motor memory, that is, , one that is related to motor skills, such as walking.
Scientists have subjected a group of 16 healthy men to transcranial electrical stimulation while they slept. The participants had to perform two different memory exercises – associative and motor – before going to bed. On the first day of the two that the experiment lasted, and once the volunteers were asleep, the electrical activity of the brain was recorded by an electroencephalogram and stimulation was applied when a type of wave called sleep spindles or sigma rhythms appeared. that are considered to be involved in the storage and consolidation processes of memories . Placebo was used on the second day.
The result was that, while in associative memory there were no differences between real and fictitious stimulation, in motor memory exercises the results were much better on the day they received power . Once the efficacy of the electric current during the sleep spindles has been confirmed, the authors are already designing a study to evaluate this technique in people in whom these waves are altered, such as patients with Alzheimer’s, autism, major depression or schizophrenia .
