The mechanism by which a good night’s sleep improves learning and memory has been discovered by scientists. [s]BBC News[/s] report that the team in China and the US used advanced microscopy to witness new synapses between brain cells forming during sleep. Their study showed even intense training could not make up for lost sleep. Professor Wen-Biao Gan, from [b]New York University[/b], is quoted as saying: ‘Finding out sleep promotes new connections between neurons is new, nobody knew this before. ‘We thought sleep helped, but it could have been other causes, and we show it really helps to make connections and that in sleep the brain is not quiet, it is replaying what happened during the day and it seems quite important for making the connections.’
[link url=http://www.bbc.com/news/health-27695144]Full BBC News report[/link]
[link url=http://www.sciencemag.org/content/344/6188/1173]Science abstract[/link]