To every nap lover's delight, it turns out that sleeping may play a larger role in learning than previously thought, according to a new study featured in the journal Current Biology.
Researchers at the University of California-Berkeley studied 44 college-aged participants at two different times of day -- once at noon and again at 6 p.m. Half the group was allowed to take a nap from 2 p.m. to 3:40 p.m., while the rest stayed awake throughout the day.
At noon and 6 p.m., researchers measured how both groups performed in facial memory tests, finger tapping memory tests and an alertness test.
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The "Nap" group performed significantly better at learning tasks when tested later in the day in comparison to subjects who did not take a lengthy nap.
The team also measured brain activity while subjects napped using an electroencephalogram. They found that success in learning correlated with the amount of stage-2 non rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, the stage preceding deep rapid eye movement (REM) sleep.
The research is unique because it points to a mechanism that may reveal sleep's importance for encoding new information -- sleep spindles, or short bursts of cell activity between areas of the brain during NREM.
But getting a few more minutes of shuteye to boost learning might not be the only help. Instead, maximizing sleep overnight seems to have the strongest effect on encoding new information.
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