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Cradling sleep not only helps adults and babies sleep better, but a new study indicates that it also allows them to improve their memory.
Most people are used to rocking their babies to send them to dreamland, but this study suggests that the rocking movement could also help adults.
Young rocked adults have not only had a better quality of sleep, but Swiss scientists have also discovered that it stimulates memory consolidation during sleep.
The volunteer participants in the study were gently shaken from side to side by a specially designed bed until they fell asleep. Not only did rocking help them to fall asleep faster, but once they were asleep, they also spent more time sleeping with non-fast eye movements, slept more deeply and went to sleep. are awake less.
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They should also remember the next morning.
The results could lead to new treatments that do not rely on sleeping pills for insomniacs or even for those who suffer from memory problems with age.
"Having a good night's sleep means falling asleep quickly and staying asleep all night," said biologist Laurence Bayer of the University of Geneva's Sleep Medicine Center.
"Our volunteers – even if they slept well – fell asleep faster after rocking and had longer, deeper sleep periods badociated with less badual activation during the night.
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Previous research by Bayer and colleagues has shown that continuous sway during a 45-minute nap helped people fall asleep faster and sleep more deeply. In the new study, 18 healthy young adults were brought to the lab for three nights of sleep.
The first night was meant to get them used to sleep there. The second night, they slept on a gently cradling bed. The third night, they slept on an identical bed that did not move.
After badyzing the sleep patterns of the participants, the researchers subjected them to memory tests.
"To see if this effect also affected memory, we put our participants through memory tests: they had to learn word pairs in the evening and memorize them the morning they woke up," said Dr. Aurore Perraul, postdoctoral fellow. . "And here too, rocking has proven to be beneficial: the test results were much better after a moving night than after a quiet night!"
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Other studies have shown that tipping affects brain oscillations during sleep.
The rocking motion resulted in specific brain oscillations due to sleep with non-rapid eye movements (slow oscillations and spindles). As a result, the continuous rocking motion synchronized neural activity in the thalamocortical networks of the brain, which play an important role in the consolidation of sleep and memory.
"Taken together, current results demonstrate that the application of rhythmic sensory stimulation, here, the use of a rocking bed during a night of sleep, promotes deep sleep and the memory consolidation in people who sleep in good health, "said Bayer.
Another study done on mice by researchers from the University of Lausanne was the first to examine whether rocking promotes sleep in other species.
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He used alternative commercial shakers to swing the mouse cages during sleep. Although the best sway rate for mice was found to be four times faster than in humans, the results showed that sway allowed to reduce the time to fall asleep and to increase the sleep time of mice and men. However, the mice did not show signs of deeper sleep.
The researchers suspected that the effects of rocking on sleep were related to the rhythmic stimulation of the vestibular system, the sensory system that contributes to our sense of balance and spatial orientation.
To explore this notion in mice, researchers studied animals whose vestibular system was disrupted by non-functional otolithic organs found in their ears.
They found that mice lacking functional otolithic organs did not experience any of the beneficial effects of swinging during sleep.
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"With the companion animal study, the current human experience thus provides new insights into the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying the effects of rocking stimuli on sleep," said Bayer. "These findings may be relevant for the development of non-pharmacologic therapies for patients with insomnia or mood disorders, or even for aging populations frequently suffering from deep sleep disorders and / or disorders. of memory. "
The researchers say that it will be essential in future work to explore the more precise and deeper brain structures involved in the effects of rocking on sleep.
Associate Professor Paul Franken, who conducted the second study in mice, said: "The results of this study corroborate previous observations on the effects of rocking on sleep and provide insight into the mechanistic aspects of the phenomenon.
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"Overall, our findings reinforce the idea that the vestibular system can be used to promote rapid eye movement sleep, by supporting efforts for a non-pharmacological and non-invasive approach to badist patients with of sleep disorders.
"Current tools, such as optogenetics, can help us decipher structures, even neuronal populations, that receive the stimulus from otolithic organs and transfer it further to the structures of the sleep circuit.
"The mapping of the communication network between the two systems will provide a basic understanding, as well as new clinical targets to deal with sleep disorders, such as insomnia."
The studies were published in the journal Current biology.
Be sure to pbad this fascinating article to your friends on social media – Photo by Predi, CC
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