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In a new research published last week in the journal Current biology, researchers from the University of Bern, Switzerland, show how we can understand and preserve the vocabulary of a foreign language during specific periods of sleep, as well as unconsciously recall the relationships between the foreign word and the translation that is presented to us while we sleep.
Sleep and memory: probing the sleeping mind
At one point in their lives, everyone had the idea that everything would be so much easier if we could just learn new information while we slept, probably when they got up late at night to study for exams end.
For a long time, scientists have considered this dormant period of sleep as an encapsulated state of mind, largely isolated from the outside world around us.
Most of the research on sleep learning has focused on studying the mechanisms involved in sleep that reinforce and cement new information acquired during sleep, but little research has been conducted to date on the potential of sleep. learn new information while they sleep.
University of Bern, researchers in Switzerland of the Institute of Psychology Katharina Henke, Marc Züst and Simon Ruch, participants in the "Decoding Sleep" program, hypothesized that the sleeping brain was much more aware of the outside world than was recognized by the researchers. people.
The role of active states of brain cells in sleep learning
The experiment conducted by the researchers made it possible to verify whether or not a person was able to create new semantic connections between unknown foreign words and an badociated translation, which were broadcast to the subject during their sleep.
Specifically, the researchers sought a connection between connection formation and the so-called "high state" of brain cells. When a person goes into a deep sleep, our brain cells coordinate more closely and enter a brief period of activity before switching over together in a subsequent period of inactivity called "ascending states" and "sleep". retrograde states ".
Both states turn around every half-second, creating a sequence of ascending states resembling stroboscopes during a sleep phase called slow wave sleep. These fast and steady flashes of activity were the crucial factor in the researchers' experience.
They found that semantic badociations between the words of an artificial language and the corresponding German translation were well formed, but only if the translated word of the pair was read 2, 3 or 4 times during a rising state in the brain of the person.
"These brain structures seem to play a role in the formation of memory, regardless of the state of dominant consciousness – unconscious during deep sleep, conscious during wakefulness," he said. Züst, first co-author of the article.
Memory conservation of words learned on sleep observed
"To what extent and with what consequences deep sleep can be used to acquire new information will it be a topic of research in the coming years," says Katharina Henke, author of a 2010 article who theorized a new model of the relationship between memory and consciousness.
After awakening, the subject of the experiment was able to sort and categorize whether an artificial word, and thus totally unknown, played by sleep was designated as a bulky object ("Guga") or small (" Tofer "). This means that the subject was able to recall the relationships between pairs played in sleep, such as "guga = elephant" and "tofer = key", at a rate higher than pure chance.
According to Züst, "it was interesting to note that the linguistic zones of the brain and the hippocampus – the essential center of brain memory – were activated during the extraction of the vocabulary acquired during sleep, because these brain structures normally facilitate the learning of new vocabulary.
By dissociating memory formation from consciousness, researchers hope to explore more sophisticated memory training opportunities while they sleep, but further research is needed to formulate definitive claims in this regard.
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