The findings, from University of Bristol in UK, show that patterns of brain activity that occur during the day are replayed at fast-forward speed during sleep.Brain activity during sleep sorts through the huge number of experiences we encounter every day, filing only the important information in memory, they said. This is important because the bad nights of sleep often experienced by both the healthy population, and people with schizophrenia or Alzheimer’s disease, lead to impaired mental function, researchers said.
“These findings are about the fundamental processes that occur in the brain during the consolidation of memory during sleep,” lead researcher Jack Mellor, from University of Bristol. “It also seems that the successful replay of brain activity during sleep is dependent on the emotional state of the person when they are learning. This has major implications for how we teach and enable people to learn effectively,” said Mellor.
