An unusual way of sleep's influence on memory has been found

Sleep plays a key role not only in consolidating memories but also in preparing the brain to memorize new information. Japanese researchers have come to this conclusion. The results of the scientific work are published in the journal Nature Communications.

During experiments on mice, scientists studied the behavior of engram cells - neurons involved in memory formation. As expected, these cells were activated during sleep after significant events, helping to consolidate the memories obtained.

However, researchers discovered a new category of neurons, which they called "future engram cells." Despite having no connection to specific information, during sleep they began to interact with already activated memory cells. Subsequently, these neurons were the ones that recorded new events.

Using a neural network model of the hippocampus, scientists found that such interactions are due to the restructuring of connections between neurons, which actively occurs during sleep. These changes, according to the authors, not only strengthen already formed memories but also create a "neural reserve" capable of effectively processing future information.

The researchers emphasized that the quality of sleep between learning episodes directly affects the ability to subsequently memorize. This discovery may have practical implications for both educational methods and memory disorder therapies.