Cornell University research demonstrates that sleep resets the hippocampus, enabling continuous learning and offering new strategies for treating memory-related disorders.
While everyone knows that a good night’s sleep restores energy, a new Cornell University study finds it resets another vital function: memory.
Learning or experiencing new things activates neurons in the hippocampus, a region of the brain vital for memory. Later, while we sleep, those same neurons repeat the same pattern of activity, which is how the brain consolidates those memories that are then stored in a large area called the cortex. But how is it that we can keep learning new things for a lifetime without using up all of our neurons?
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