New research confirms: we can learn while sleeping

This research continues to reinforce the views of many scientists about brain learning even when the body is resting.

Research by a team of scientists from the Ecole Normale Supérieure pedagogical school, France, published in the journal Nature Communications, recently confirmed that a kind of auditory memory can form when people fall asleep. Although this type of memory can only be created in some special stages of sleep.

In one trial, a group of 20 sleep-sleeping volunteers were exposed to white noise (low-frequency, even and continuous sound) combined with playback patterns.

People can learn everything in the early stages of sleep.

After electrocardiographic analysis (EEG) and behavioral response, the researchers found that the volunteer team learned and memorized sound patterns during REM . This is a typical sleep phase with rapid eye movements, easy dreams, body movements and faster breathing. Some learning processes also take place in the N2 sleep phase, the first stage of sleep, when all bodily activities, including awareness of the world, begin to subside.

According to Quartz, it is quite interesting that people can learn everything in the early stages of sleep. However, at the N3 stage later, when the sleep was deep and the brain waves slowed down, everything seemed to turn upside down. Now instead of being able to learn everything, the brain seems to want to "get rid of" everything and repress its own ability to remember.

Thomas Andrillon, a researcher in the project, said: " We think that this brain-dominating effect shows a core function of sleep, allowing the brain to forget many things. constantly creating new memories when awake, and it would be dangerous to repress and maintain a lot of memories in the brain, which could even clog the brain. "

Andrillon also points out, even in the sleep stages when the brain forms memories, it is not necessarily the ideal time to study. Stimulating the sleeping brain can result in sleep function. You can learn new words, but that is also exchanged for a certain price.

Stimulating the sleeping brain can result in sleep function.

That is what makes Andrillon skeptical about the effectiveness of the idea of ​​learning language while sleeping. However, he suggests that some forms of learning may be effective during sleep, for example using REM sleep to regulate messages that smokers should quit in the brain.

Research certainly has a lot to learn, including the development of intelligent technologies that allow sleep monitoring, REM phase identification and short lectures to test the learning ability of each one.

The hypothesis of the brain can learn and form memories while sleeping has become a major debate among scientists in recent years. With this latest research, the argument from the hypothetical supporters will be more certain.