Researchers present evidence on how the brain strengthens memories while we sleep. According to the study, memory consolidation can be improved by focused deep-brain stimulation during a certain sleep phase. This could offer important details on how people with memory impairments like Alzheimer's disease might benefit from deep-brain stimulation.
The novel "closed-loop" technology employed in the study provided electrical pulses timed to brain activity, strengthening the link between the cerebral cortex and the brain's memory core.
Key details:
The mainstream idea of how the brain consolidates memories while we sleep is supported for the first time physiologically by the findings of this study.
According to the study, memory consolidation can be improved by focused deep brain stimulation during a crucial sleep phase.
The findings may offer important new information on potential Alzheimer's disease and other memory disorders treatments that target deep brain stimulation while you sleep.
Citation: UCLA
Although it is well recognized that sleep is essential for improving memory, researchers are still striving to understand exactly how this process occurs in the brain at night.
The leading scientific theory on how the brain consolidates memories during sleep is supported by new study from UCLA Health and Tel Aviv University. This research is being led by scientists.
The study team also discovered that focused deep brain stimulation during a crucial phase of sleep appeared to enhance memory consolidation.
The study, which was co-authored by Itzhak Fried, MD, PhD, and was published in Nature Neuroscience on June 1st, may provide fresh information about how deep brain stimulation during sleep can someday benefit people with memory impairments like Alzheimer's disease.
An innovative "closed-loop" technique that accurately matched electrical pulses in one brain region to brain activity recorded from another region was used to achieve this.
The cerebral cortex, which is linked to higher brain functions like reasoning and planning, and the hippocampus, the brain's memory hub, communicate throughout the night, according to the leading explanation for how the brain converts new information into long-term memories while you sleep.
When brain waves are particularly sluggish and neurons in various brain regions alternate between quickly firing in sync and silence, this happens during a stage of profound sleep.
"This provides the first major evidence down to the level of single neurons that there is indeed this mechanism of interaction between the memory hub and the entire cortex," said Fried, director of epilepsy surgery at UCLA Health and professor of neurosurgery, psychiatry, and biobehavioral sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
It is valuable from a scientific standpoint to comprehend how human memory functions and to apply that information to significantly improve memory.
The brains of 18 epilepsy patients at UCLA Health provided a unique opportunity for the researchers to test this idea of memory consolidation using electrodes. The electrodes were inserted into the patients' brains to assist in determining the cause of their seizures throughout hospital stays, which normally last 10 days.
The investigation took place over two mornings and nights. Before going to bed, study participants were shown photographs of 25 famous people, including instantly recognizable figures like Marilyn Monroe and Jack Nicholson.
They were tested right away to see if they could remember which celebrity was associated with which animal, and they were checked once more the next morning following a sound sleep.
The brains of 18 epilepsy patients at UCLA Health provided a unique opportunity for the researchers to test this idea of memory consolidation using electrodes. The electrodes were inserted into the patients' brains to assist in determining the cause of their seizures throughout hospital stays, which normally last 10 days.
The investigation took place over two mornings and nights. Before going to bed, study participants were shown photographs of 25 famous people, including instantly recognizable figures like Marilyn Monroe and Jack Nicholson.
They were tested right away to see if they could remember which celebrity was associated with which animal, and they were checked once more the next morning following a sound sleep.
Important electrophysiological indicators also showed that information was moving between the hippocampus and the whole cortex, offering concrete proof that memory consolidation was taking place.
Fried remarked, "We discovered we essentially improved this highway by which information flows to more long-term storage places in the brain."
In 2012, Fried published a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine that demonstrated for the first time how electrical stimulation might increase memory. Since then, Fried's research has continued to examine how deep brain stimulation may enhance memory, and is currently focusing on the crucial sleep stage.
To investigate whether artificial intelligence can support the identification and reinforcement of certain memories in the brain, he just won a $7 million NIH grant.
Fried stated, "In our recent work, we shown that we can improve memory generally. "Whether we have the ability to modulate particular memories is our next challenge."
Fried and Yuval Nir, both from Tel Aviv University, shared study supervision. Maya Geva-Sagiv, the primary author, Emily Mankin, Dawn Eliashiv, Natalie Cherry, Guldamla Kalender, Natalia Tchemodanov, and Shdema Epstein from Tel-Aviv University are among the other authors.
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