Sleep May Be Linked With Memory, Study Suggests
Aaaah, sleep. Research shows that not getting enough of the stuff can contribute toweight gain,crabbiness,high blood pressureand even animpaired immune system. But the latest study shows a more "intelligent" reason to sleep: Some people's memories are strengthenedwhile they doze.
Michigan State University researchers studied the memory and sleep of 250 people and found that sleeping seems toimprove memoriesin some people, in a yet-to-be-defined way that might not be able to be demonstrated on an intelligence or aptitude test like the SAT.
"We speculate that we may be investigating a separate form of memory, distinct from traditional memory systems," study researcher Kimberly Fenn, assistant professor of psychology, said in a statement. "There is substantial evidence that during sleep, your brain is processing information without your awareness and this ability may contribute to memory in a waking state."
This form of memory is called working memory capacity, or WMC, and researchers wrote in the study that it could "contribute substantially to individual differences inonline processing," that is then a predictor of how well a person can then problem-solve, learn vocabulary, make decisions and comprehend reading passages.
Fromthe study:
... There was a significant, positive correlation between WMC and increase in memory performance after sleep but not after a period of wakefulness.
Now, more studies must be done to see if the sort of improved memory witnessed in the study is actually translatable to better learning in school or elsewhere, researchers said.
This isn't the first research to link sleep with memory. While most studies have ruled out that listening to things as you sleep helps you to retain that information, a 2009 study in the journalScienceshowed that sleep helped tostrengthenexisting(but not new) memoriesin people, ABC News reported.
"Ourmemory systems are still activewhile we're asleep. Memories can be strengthened while we're asleep," study researcher John Rudoy, a doctoral student in neuroscience at Northwestern University, told ABC News.
And in a very small study last year in the journalCurrent Biology,The New York Timesreported that people whodreamed while taking a napdid better afterward at completing a maze, compared with people who just napped but didn't dream, or people who didn't nap at all.
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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
