Most of us probably have been told at some point in our lives to “sleep on it” or to “get a good night’s sleep.”
But have you ever wondered, perhaps a little annoyed: Why should I sleep on it? Or why do I need to sleep at all? After all, if you didn’t have to sleep, it would give you an extra eight hours each day to finish up all those tasks and errands that always seem to be hanging over your head. Just a real inconvenience, right?
Believe it or not, science is just starting to uncover the exact functions of sleep. It turns out that sleep is important for many different reasons — some of which you might never have dreamed of.
A large body of scientific research suggests that sleep is important for strengthening memories, learning, and even problem solving. Imagine that you are trying to learn the locations of pairs of objects located on a grid (as in the game Memory). You will be tested on your ability to recall the locations. Would it be better to learn the locations of the pairs in the morning and then get retested that same evening, or learn their locations right before you go to sleep and get retested after you wake up? Studies show that if you sleep between the learning session and being retested, you will do better at recalling the locations of the object pairs. This is not just true for the “matching game,” but for a whole host of other cognitive tasks as well. Our brains are hard at work consolidating memories while we sleep.
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Now imagine that as you were learning the locations of the object pairs, there was a sweet-smelling vase of roses nearby, or you were listening to a Mozart symphony (or a Taylor Swift song, if that is more your style). Scientists have shown that if they introduce those smells or sounds while you sleep (without waking you), you will do even better on the matching game upon awaking. That is, the sounds and smells you absorbed during learning, when covertly presented during sleep, can further enhance the learning and memory benefits that come with a good night’s sleep. Pretty cool, huh? Our group at Virginia Tech investigates just how the brain processes memories during sleep and how we might intervene during sleep to speed up learning.
Aside from the benefits for learning, sleep is thought to be important for cleaning out waste products from the brain, some of which have been linked to neurodegenerative disorders. But wait, there’s more slow wave sleep, popularly referred to as deep sleep, is also important for engaging the immune system — helping to fight infections and heal wounds.
In many disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, post traumatic stress disorder, and traumatic brain injury, sleep is disrupted. These disruptions likely interfere with the recuperative and restorative functions as well as the learning and memory benefits of sleep and may be responsible for some of the symptoms of these disorders. Another focus of our group at Virginia Tech is to investigate exactly how brain activity during sleep is disrupted in disorders like Parkinson’s disease and PTSD.
We hope that such investigations will allow us to develop therapies for diseases. We are especially interested in sleep-based auditory therapies. We know that sounds played during sleep can influence brain activity. Research suggests that with sleep disorders, the right sounds played at the right times during sleep may even be able to restore neurotypical brain activity and help to ameliorate symptoms. Our group plans to work to optimize the selection of sound type and timing for the treatment of specific neural disorders. Our hope is that this work may lead to home-based therapies that improve people’s lives.
Until then, you guessed it, we’ll sleep on it.