Researchers are in a renaissance of understanding how sleep affects health and cognition. A big shift is occurring from thinking about sleep as a reactive, or homeostatic process, to now also recognizing the prospective role of the sleeping brain. And a new study is providing further evidence about how the brain prioritizes storing information during […]
Going Deep on Sleep with Matthew Walker
Did you get enough sleep last night? Probably not, says Matthew Walker, cognitive neuroscientist and neurophysiologist at the University of California, Berkeley. Statistics show, he says, that two-thirds of adults fail to obtain the recommended 8 hours of nightly sleep. If that doesn’t seem like a big deal, Walker has some robust research to counter […]
CNS 2018 Day 4 In Brief
It was a great 4 days of science in Boston at CNS 2018! The sun was out and it was warming up outside, while inside participants were treated to the last poster session of the meeting and a wonderful set of final symposia. Talks covered what makes musical rhythm special and sleep’s role in memory […]
Enhancing the Sleeping Brain
Guest Post by Sadie (Sarah) Witkowski, Northwestern University As one of five children, my mom has plenty of stories about her and her siblings’ misadventures. One of my favorites revolves around my “weird” Uncle Dorsey and his early scientific endeavors. When my mom was about 8 years old, her older brother slipped a tape player under […]
Sleep Offers a Window Into Human Intelligence
Not a day goes by, it seems, without some reminder of how important sleep is for our brain health – whether a headline about the dangers of cell phone use before bed or the latest start-up encouraging its workers to nap during the day. While we are all increasingly aware of the necessity of sleep […]
What New Memory Research Can Tell Us About Second-Language Learning
Guest Post by Angela Grant, Pennsylvania State University Tell me if this sounds familiar: You just turned the light off, your head is on the pillow, your eyes are closed, and yet instead of drifting off to dreamland, you find yourself thinking about something that happened earlier in the day. Frustrating as rehashing those memories […]
Understanding How We Trigger and Rehearse Memories
CNS 2016 Blog Today I met Daphna Shohamy. Will I remember who she is if I run into her later for dinner? If I see her, I probably won’t relive her morning talk but memories of CNS likely (hopefully!) will come to mind to help me remember who she is. This is how Shohamy likes […]
From Learning in Infancy to Planning Ahead in Adulthood: Sleep’s Vital Role for Memory
CNS 2014 Press Release Boston – April 8, 2014 – Babies and young children make giant developmental leaps all of the time. Sometimes, it seems, even overnight they figure out how to recognize certain shapes or what the word “no” means no matter who says it. It turns out that making those leaps could be […]
Remembering After We Sleep Could be a Smell Away
Just smelling my mom’s homemade lasagna evokes very particular memories from my childhood – the way the kitchen looked, silly conversations with my family over dinner, an outfit that I used to wear. Because smells can so effectively help us remember, they are a powerful tool for scientists studying memory. In a new study, researchers […]
Sleeping for Learning: How Children and Adults Maximize Their Memory Potential
It’s not quantity but quality that matters when it comes to how much sleep strengthens our memories. A growing body of research is finding that specific stages of sleep shape particular types of learning in the brain. Whether for children napping or for older adults catching z’s at night, we all rely on sleep to […]
