A good night’s sleep enables the brain to retrieve facts “forgotten” during the day, say researchers from the University of Chicago. Dr Daniel Margoliash and colleagues asked a group of volunteers to remember a list of simple words. As the day drew on many of the volunteers found that their memory was beginning to let them down. However, the following morning subjects who said they had had a good night’s sleep could recall words that they had “forgotten” the night before. It is thought that when the brain is first asked to remember something, that memory is laid down in an “unstable” state, meaning that it is possible that the memory could be lost. However, it appears that when we sleep the brain sifts through memories created during the day, discarding those deemed unimportant and stabilizing important memories.
SOURCE/REFERENCE: Reported by www.bbc.co.uk on the 9th October 2003.
