Learning During Sleep? Researchers Investigate Communication Between Memory Areas

[6 December 2006 - Max-Planck-Gesellschaft on Science Daily] If I can’t remember this morning where I put my car keys last night, it’s due to my memory failing me again. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg have been investigating how memories might be consolidated. Their new study offers the hitherto strongest proof that new information is transferred between the hippocampus, the short term memory area, and the cerebral cortex during sleep. According to their findings and contrary to previous assumptions, the cerebral cortex actively controls this transfer. The researchers developed a new technique for their investigations which promises previously impossible insight into the largely under-researched field of information processing in the brain (Nature Neuroscience, November 2006). More