New Delhi, November 23 (IANS). Scientists have made an important discovery through which we will be able to know how sleep increases the power of our brain. Along with this, scientists have tried to explain how important sleep is for the development of body and brain.
Many earlier researches have revealed that sleep helps in increasing our cognitive performance. However, the underlying neural mechanisms, particularly those related to non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, have remained largely unexplored.
A new study conducted by a team of researchers from Rice University and Houston Methodist Center for Neural System Restoration and Weill Cornell Medical College aimed to reveal this very thing.
The research, published in the journal Science, suggests that NREM sleep (light sleep experienced when taking a nap, for example) sharpens the brain and enhances information encoding, providing new insight into this sleep stage. Comes out in front.
The researchers replicated these effects through invasive stimulation, suggesting promising possibilities for future neuro-modulation treatments in humans.
“During sleep, we experience a variety of different types of activity in our brains,” said Dr. Natasha Kharas, a former researcher in the Dragois lab and resident in neurological surgery at Weill Cornell. “Many of these help the brain relax and regain energy.”
However, neuronal activity after sleep became more incoherent than before sleep, allowing neurons to fire more independently. This change led to improvements in accuracy in information processing and performance in visual tasks.
The findings showed that sleep improved the animals’ performance on a visual task as well as increased accuracy in recognizing rotating images.
Importantly, this improvement was only in people who actually slept. Those who did not sleep performed the same.
“This discovery is important because it suggests that some of the beneficial effects of sleep, such as brain repair and performance improvement, can be achieved even without actual sleep,” said Valentin Dragoi, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Rice University. “
–IANS
MKS/AS