Sleep benefits subsequent hippocampal functioning.

Ysbrand D Van Der Werf, Ellemarije Altena, Menno M Schoonheim, Ernesto J Sanz-Arigita, José C Vis, Wim De Rijke, Eus J W Van Someren
Nat Neurosci. 2009-01-18; 12(2): 122-123
DOI: 10.1038/nn.2253


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Comment in
Nat Neurosci. 2009 Feb;12(2):110.

Sleep before learning benefits memory encoding through unknown mechanisms. We
found that even a mild sleep disruption that suppressed slow-wave activity and
induced shallow sleep, but did not reduce total sleep time, was sufficient to
affect subsequent successful encoding-related hippocampal activation and memory
performance in healthy human subjects. Implicit learning was not affected. Our
results suggest that the hippocampus is particularly sensitive to shallow, but
intact, sleep.

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