Mounting evidence from human and animal studies supports the idea that during sleep the brain is busy eliminating debris and redundant synapses that would interfere with efficient waking functions. Circuits are also modified to smoothly incorporate new information into old schema. Coordinated sets of elecrophysioloical and neurochemical conditions that are incompatible with wakefulness must be met during sleep in order to accomplish these essential tasks. We will briefly review the most important traits of sleep for memory and mental health, dive into a few recent studies that reveal important requirements we have overlooked in the past, and explore what these discoveries indicate for efficient memory and good mental health, developmental processes, aging, including implications for the interpretation of past studies.
Gina Poe has been working since 1995 on the mechanisms through which sleep serves memory consolidation and restructuring. She is a Professor at UCLA and Directs the COMPASS-Life Sciences and BRI-SURE programs and co-Directs the MARC-U*STAR program.