Sleep deprivation is not uncommon in the modern technological world and despite a plethora of energy drinks and other products that supposedly help to enhance focus, sleep may play a more vital role in our brain’s health than once thought. Neuroscientists have been engaged in extensive research to learn in better detail how the brain functions and have been specifically fascinated in the relationship between dreams and other aspects of brain activity when a person is sleeping.
The latest research coming from a collaboration of scientists Wen-Biao Gan from the New York School of Medicine and his colleagues from Peking University Shenzhen has shown evidence that neuron connections are actually created during the process of sleep. The state of a person’s sleep looks like it could determine the effectiveness of the brain’s ability to create new neuron pathways. This means that an individual who sleeps for only a couple hours at a time tend to form fewer neuron connections than someone that sleeps for a full 8 hours a night.
Tests in mice have determined that sleep deprived members of the test population also produce significantly less neuron connections. The studies involved testing a mouse by providing an hour of exercise followed by an hour of sleep, then retested on a mouse given 3 hours of exercise with no sleep. Repeated results showed that sleep proves to be one of the factors behind maintaining a healthy brain. Testing was also conducted on humans to determine if different phases of sleep are more useful than others. Results from the experiments showed that deeper sleep (slow-waves) was more effective for a healthy number of synaptic connections (neuron pathways) to be formed.
Part of the nervous system in the brain is a structure called the synapse which is essentially a two part receptor that allows neurons to pass chemical signals or electrical signal to other parts of the body. The way in which your brain processes and stores experiences and memories creates synaptic connections which helps to improve a person’s cognitive abilities particularly in areas of memory. Observations from Dr. Raphaelle Winsky-Sommerer after reading the research notes from Wen-Biao Gan stated that the observations published may change the way we think about sleep and studying habits.
With the results from Wen-Biao Gan’s research it seems that overnight cram sessions may not be an effective learning habit for students. In order gain the full potential of memory retention from the formation of synaptic connections it is essential that an individual gets sleep after a study session.
