Monday, October 15, 2012

Memory and Sleep

A recent study by UCLA professor Mayank R. Mehta studied the memory consolidation properties of the brain during a state of sleep. Previous studies suggest that the neocortex works with the hippocampus to consolidate memories, but Mehta found that early research was missing an essential component, entorhinal cortex . Mehta theorized that entorhinal cortex helps sort memories and delete irrelevant information while sleeping. Perhaps this is why researchers say you should sleep after studying to have the best opportunity to form memories.  Click HERE to read a summary of the article at Science Daily.  The full article appeared in Nature Neuroscience.