Sleep is significant for long-lasting memories, particularly during this examination season. New research suggests that sleeping triggers the synapses in our brain to both strengthen and weaken, which prompts the forgetting, strengthening or modification of our memories.

 Research publishing in the University of Michigan suggests that groups of neurons activated during prior learning keep humming and building memories into your brain during sleep which prompts the forgetting, strengthening or modification of our memories in a process known as long-term potentiation.

U-M researchers have been studying how memories associated with a specific sensory event are formed and stored in mice. In a study conducted prior to the coronavirus pandemic and recently published in Nature Communications, the researchers examined how a fearful memory formed in relation to a specific visual stimulus.

They found that not only did the neurons activated by the visual stimulus keep more active during subsequent sleep, but sleep is also vital to their ability to connect the fear memory to the sensory event. Previous research has shown that regions of the brain that are highly active during intensive learning tend to show more activity during subsequent sleep.

Focusing on a specific set of neurons in the primary visual cortex, Aton and the study’s lead author, graduate student Brittany Clawson, created a visual memory test. They showed a group of mice a neutral image, and expressed genes in the visual cortex neurons activated by the image.

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