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Sleep researchers Deep sleep is very important for the brain's ability to learn
About one in four Germans suffer from sleep disorders. This not only means that sufferers are often tired, but also increases the risk of various diseases. It also affects cognitive abilities. Because deep sleep is important for the learning ability of the brain.
Sleep disorders endanger your health
According to the Robert Koch Institute, about 25 percent of Germans suffer from sleep disorders, and sleep is often not restful for a further eleven percent. This has an impact on health. Those who sleep permanently poorly not only suffer from tiredness, but are also at greater risk for conditions such as depression, anxiety disorders, diabetes and also cardiovascular diseases such as heart attacks. And recently, a study showed that sleep disorders can increase the risk of stroke. But good sleep is not only important for your health, but also for your brain's ability to learn, as Swiss scientists report.
Our brain needs enough sleep to learn. Researchers have shown for the first time a causal relationship between deep sleep and learning ability. (Image: elnariz / fotolia.com) After insomnia mental tasks can be handled worse
Most people know from their own experience that even a single sleepless night can make mental tasks difficult to master the next day.
Because the brain needs enough sleep to learn. Researchers at the University of Zurich and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich have now established a causal relationship between deep sleep and learning ability for the first time.
In the journal "Nature Communications" they report on their results.
Causal relationship between deep sleep and learning ability
Experts believe that deep sleep is essential to maintain the brain's learning ability in the long term. While we are awake, we constantly get impressions from our environment, which numerous connections between the nerve cells - called synapses - excited and temporarily strengthened.
Only in sleep the excitability of synapses is normalized again. Without a recovery phase, many synapses remain maximally excited, so that no change in the system is possible anymore: The learning ability is blocked.
The connection between deep sleep and learning ability has long been known and proven. For the first time, however, the Swiss researchers were able to show a causal connection in the human brain.
Reto Huber, UZH Professor at the Children's Hospital and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Zurich, and Nicole Wenderoth, ETH Professor at the Department of Health Sciences and Technology, have managed to manipulate the deep sleep of test subjects.
"We have developed a method that allows us to reduce the depth of sleep of a specific brain region and thus prove the causal relationship between deep sleep and learning ability," said Reto Huber in a statement.
Subjective sleep quality not impaired
As part of the study, the subjects had to learn during the day various sequences of finger movements. During the night, the brain activities of the participants were monitored by EEG during sleep.
While the study participants were able to sleep undisturbed on the first day after the learning phase, their sleep was specifically influenced on the second day of the test - by means of acoustic stimulation during the deep sleep phase.
The researchers localized exactly this brain region, which is responsible for learning the mentioned finger movements, so the control of motor skills (motor cortex). The subjects were unaware of this manipulation.
Disturbed deep sleep impairs efficiency
In a second step, it was examined how the influence of deep sleep affects the motor learning tasks on the following day. To do this, the scientists observed how the learning and performance curves of the participants changed during the course of the experiment.
As expected, the participants were able to learn the motor task well, especially in the morning. The later the hour, the higher the error rate. After sleep, the ability to learn improved again significantly. Not so after the night with the manipulated sleep phase.
Here were significant performance losses and significant difficulties in learning the finger movements. The learning ability was similarly weak as on the evening of the first day of the test. Manipulation of the motor cortex did not diminish the excitability of the corresponding synapses during sleep.
"In the still-energized brain region, learning was saturated and no longer allowed any changes, so that learning motor skills was inhibited," said Nicole Wenderoth.
In a control experiment, the researchers manipulated with the same task another brain region during deep sleep. Here, however, showed no effects on the performance of the participants.
According to the scientists, the new findings are an important step in the study of human sleep. Their goal is to incorporate the findings into clinical trials.
"There are many diseases that also manifest during sleep, such as epilepsy. Thanks to the new method, we hope to be able to influence those brain regions that are directly linked to the disease, "says Reto Huber. This could help to improve the condition of affected patients. (Ad)