A new study reveals that sleep not only consolidates existing memories but also primes the brain for future learning.
Researchers tracked neuronal activity in mice and discovered ‘engram-to-be cells’ that synchronize during sleep, preparing to encode new experiences.
This dual role suggests that sleep quality between learning sessions affects both memory retention and the ability to acquire new knowledge. The findings could influence educational practices and treatments for cognitive and memory disorders.
Memory formation, storage, and retrieval are fundamental processes that define who we are and how we interact with the world.
At the cellular level, these processes rely on specialized neurons called engram cells—neuronal populations that physically encode our experiences and allow us to recall them later.
Over the past few decades, scientists have made significant progress in identifying these neuronal ensembles and understanding some aspects of memory allocation.
Although sleep is widely known to be essential for memory processing and consolidation, many of its underlying mechanisms and functions are unclear.
Traditional views have largely focused on sleep as a backward-looking process that serves to strengthen past experiences, but could it simultaneously help prepare the brain for new learning?
