In our modern societies, sleep is commonly viewed as a luxury rather than a necessity, and should be kept at a strict minimum to enhance productivity. However, recent empirical studies reveal that sleep does play a critical role in our learning and memory; in fact, it has been shown that good sleep quality, feeling rested at school and having a distinct bed time have been associated with better functioning at school. Although consensus on sleep’s contribution to the active processing of newly acquired memories has been established now, the question about exactly what underlying mechanisms are involved in the sleep-memory connection still remains unclear. This paper will critically discuss how sleep affects learning and memory with reference to current research findings.
KeywordsSleepMemoryLearningAcquisitionConsolidationRetrievalActive System Consolidation TheorySynaptic Homeostasis Theory
Ahrberg, K., Dresler, M., Niedermaier, S., Steiger, A., & Genzel, L. (2012). The Interaction between Sleep Quality and Academic Performance. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 46, 1618-1622. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2012.09.008
Alger, S. E., Lau, H., & Fishbein, W. (2012). Slow Wave Sleep during a Daytime Nap Is Necessary for Protection from Subsequent Interference and Long-Term Retention. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 98, 188-196. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nlm.2012.06.003
Alger, S. E., Chambers, A. M., Cunningham, T., & Payne, J. D. (2014). The Role of Sleep in Human Declarative Memory Consolidation. Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences, 25, 269-306. https://doi.org/10.1007/7854_2014_341
Barrett, T. R., & Ekstrand, B. R. (1972). Effect of Sleep on Memory III: Controlling for Time-of-Day Effects. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 96, 321-327. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0033625
Billiard, M. (2008). Normal Sleep. In H. R. Smith, C. L. Comella, & B. Hogel (Eds.), Sleep Medicine (pp. 9-24). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511545085.003
Buzsaki, G. (1989). Two-Stage Model of Memory Trace Formation: A Role for Noisy Brain State. Neuroscience, 31, 551-570. https://doi.org/10.1016/0306-4522(89)90423-5
Centre for Educational Neuroscience, CEN (2017). Well-Rested children Do Better at School. Neuro-hit or Neuro-myth. http://www.educationalneuroscience.org.uk/neuromyth-or-neurofact/w ell-rested-children-do-better-at-school/
Cirelli, C., & Tononi, G. (2008). Is Sleep Essential? PloS Biology, 6, e216.
De Bruin, E. J., Van Run, C., Staaks, J., & Meijer, A. M. (2017). Effects of Sleep Manipulation on Cognitive Functioning of Adolescents: A Systematic Review. Sleep Medicine Reviews, 32, 45-57. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smrv.2016.02.006
Diekelmann, S., & Born, J. (2010). The Memory Function of Sleep. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 11, 114-126. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2762
Diekelmann, S., Biggel, S., Rasch, B., & Born, J. (2012). Offline Consolidation of Memory Varies with Time in Slow Wave Sleep and Can Be Accelerated by Cuing Memory Reactivations. Neurobiology of Learning Memory, 98, 103-111. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nlm.2012.07.002
Drummond, S. P., Brown, G. C., Gillin, J. C., Stricker, J. L., Wong, E. C., & Buxton, R. B. (2000). Altered Brain Response to Verbal Learning Following Sleep Deprivation. Nature, 403, 655-657. https://doi.org/10.1038/35001068
Durrant, S. J., Taylor, C., Cairney, S., & Lewis, P. A. (2011). Sleep-Dependent Consolidation of Statistical Learning. Neuropsychologia, 49, 1322-1331. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2011.02.015
Euston, D. R., & Steenland, H. W. (2014). Memories―Getting Wired during Sleep. Science, 344, 1087-1088. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1255649
Feld, G. B., & Diekelmann, S. (2015). Sleep Smart-Optimizing Sleep for Declarative Learning and Memory. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, Article 622. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00622
Fowler, M. J., Sullivan, M. J., & Ekstrand, B. R. (1973). Sleep and Memory. Science, 179, 302-304.
Gais, S., Lucas, B., & Born, J. (2006). Sleep after Learning Aids Memory Recall. Learning Memory, 13, 259-262. https://doi.org/10.1101/lm.132106
Genzel, L., Ahrberg, K., Roselli, C., Niedermaier, S., Steiger, A., Dresler, M. et al. (2013). Sleep Timing Is More Important than Sleep Length or Quality for Medical School Performance. Chronobiology International, 30, 766-771. https://doi.org/10.3109/07420528.2012.763132
Gomez, R. L., Bootzin, R. R., & Nadel, L. (2006). Naps Promote Abstraction in Language-Learning Infants. Psychological Science, 17, 670-674. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01764.x
Harvard Health (2012). Sleep Helps Learning, Memory. https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/sleep-helps-learning-memory-201202154265
Harvard Health (2014). Too Little Sleep, and Too Much, Affect Memory. https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/little-sleep-much-affect-memory-201405027136
Harvard Health (2017). The Health Hazards of Insufficient Sleep. https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/the-health-hazards-of-insufficient-sleep
Hill, C. M., Hogan, A. M., & Karmiloff-Smith, A. (2007). To Sleep, Perchance to Enrich Learning? Archives of Diseases in Childhood, 92, 637-643.
Inostroza, M., & Born, J. (2013). Sleep for Preserving and Transforming Episodic Memory. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 36, 79-102. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-neuro-062012-170429
Kopasz, M., Loessl, B., Hornyak, M., Riemann, D., Nissen, C., Piosczyk, H., & Voderholzer, U. (2010). Sleep and Memory in Healthy Children and Adolescents—A Critical Review. Sleep Medicine Reviews, 14, 167-177. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smrv.2009.10.006
Lahl, O., Wispel, C., Willigens, B., & Pietrowsky, R. (2008). An Ultra Short Episode of Sleep Is Sufficient to Promote Declarative Memory Performance. Journal of Sleep Research, 17, 3-10. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2869.2008.00622.x
Lewis, P. A., & Durrant, S. J. (2011). Overlapping Memory Replay during Sleep Builds Cognitive Schemas. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 15, 343-351. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2011.06.004
Maquet, P., Laureys, S., Peigneux, P., Fuchs, S., Philips, C., Aerts, J., Del Fiore, G., Dequeldre, C., Meulemans, T., Luxen, A., Franck, G., Van Der Linden, M., Smith, C., & Cleeremans, A. (2000). Experience-Dependent Changes in Cerebral Activation during Human REM Sleep. Nature Neuroscience, 3, 831-836. https://doi.org/10.1038/77744
Maret, S., Faraguna, U., Nelson, A. B., Cirelli, C., & Tononi, G. (2011). Sleep and Waking Modulate Spine Turnover in the Adolescent Mouse Cortex. Nature Neuroscience, 14, 1418-1420. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.2934
Mander, B. A., Santhanam, S., Saletin, J. M., & Walker, M. P. (2011). Wake Deterioration and Sleep Restoration of Human Being. Current Biology, 21, R183-R184. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2011.01.019
McDermott, C. M., LaHoste, G. J., Chen, C., Musto, A., Bazan, N. G., & Magee, J. C. (2003). Sleep Deprivation Causes Behavioural, Synaptic, and Membrane Excitability Alterations in Hippocampal Neurons. Journal of Neuroscience, 23, 9687-9695.
Oudiette, D., & Paller, K. A. (2013). Upgrading the Sleeping Brain with Targeted Memory Reactivation. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 17, 142-149. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2013.01.006
Payne, J. D., Tucker, M. A., Ellenbogen, J. M., Wamsley, E. J., Walker, M. P., Schacter, D. L., & Stickgold, R. (2012). Memory for Semantically Related and Unrelated Declarative Information: The Benefit of Sleep, the Cost of Wake. PLoS ONE, 7, e33079. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0033079
Peigneux, P., Laureys, S., Fuchs, S., Collete, F., Perrin, F., Reggers, J., Philips, C., Dequeldre, C., Del Fiore, G., Aerts, J., Luxen, A., & Maquet, P. (2004). Are Spatial Memories Strengthened in the Human Hippocampus during Slow Wave Sleep? Neuron, 44, 535-545.
Plihal, W., & Born, J. (1997). Effects of Early and Late Nocturnal Sleep on Declarative and Procedural Memory. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 9, 534-547. https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn.1997.9.4.534
Rasch, B., & Born, J. (2013). About Sleep’s Role in Memory. Physiological Reviews, 93, 681-766. https://doi.org/10.1152/physrev.00032.2012
Ribeiro, S., & Stickgold, R. (2014). Sleep and School Education. Trends in Neuroscience and Education, 3, 18-23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tine.2014.02.004
Schulz, H. (2008). Rethinking Sleep Analysis: Comment on the AASM Manual for the Scoring of Sleep and Associated Events. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 4, 99-103.
Stickgold, R. (2013). Parsing the Role of Sleep in Memory Processing. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 23, 847-853. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conb.2013.04.002
Talamini, L. M., Nieuwenhuis, I. L., Takashima, A., & Jensen, O. (2008). Sleep Directly Following Learning Benefits Consolidation of Spatial Associative Memory. Learning Memory, 15, 233-237. https://doi.org/10.1101/lm.771608
Tononi, G., & Cirelli, C. (2003). Sleep and Synaptic Homeostasis: A Hypothesis. Brain Research Bulletin, 62, 143-150. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brainresbull.2003.09.004
Tononi, G., & Cirelli, C. (2006). Sleep Function and Synaptic Homeostasis. Sleep Medicine Reviews, 10, 49-62. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smrv.2005.05.002
Tononi, G., & Cirelli, C. (2014). Sleep and the Price of Plasticity: From Synaptic and Cellular Homeostasis to Memory Consolidation and Integration. Neuron, 81, 12-34. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2013.12.025
Tucker, M. A., & Fishbein, W. (2009). The Impact of Sleep Duration and Subject Intelligence on Declarative and Motor Memory Performance: How Much Is Enough? Journal of Sleep Research, 18, 304-312.
Vyazovskiy, V. V., Cirelli, C., Pfister-Genskow, M., Faraguna, U., & Tononi, G. (2008). Molecular and Electrophysiological Evidence for Net Synaptic Potentiation in Wake and Depression in Sleep. Nature Neuroscience, 11, 200-208. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn2035
Wagner, U., Gais, S., Haider, H., Verleger, R., & Born, J. (2004). Sleep Inspires Insight. Nature, 427, 352-355. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature02223
Watson, B. O., & Buzsaki, G. (2015). Sleep, Memory and Brain Rhythms. Daedalus, 144, 67-82. https://doi.org/10.1162/DAED_a_00318
Wilhelm, I., Rose, M., Imhof, K. I., Rasch, B., Buchel, C., & Born, J. (2013). The Sleeping Child Outplays the Adult’s Capacity to Convert Implicit into Explicit Knowledge. Nature Neuroscience, 16, 391-393. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3343
Wilson, M. A., & McNaughton, B. L. (1994). Reactivation of Hippocampal Ensemble Memories during Sleep. Science, 265, 676-679.
Yang, G., Lai, C. S., Cichon, J., Ma, L., Li, W., & Gan, W. B. (2014). Sleep Promotes Branch-Specific Formation of Dendritic Spines after Learning. Science, 344, 1173-1178. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1249098
Yaroush, R., Sullivan, M. J., & Ekstrand, B. R. (1971). Effect of Sleep on Memory II: Differential Effect of the First and Second Half of the Night. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 88, 361-366. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0030914
Yoo, S. S., Hu, P. T., Gujar, N., Jolesz, F. A., & Walker, M. P. (2007). A Deficit in the Ability to Form New Human Memories without Sleep. Nature Neuroscience, 10, 385-392. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1851