Studying while sleeping!

▎The ability of WuXi AppTec's content team to edit human memory of specific events usually appears in infancy and progresses rapidly at the age of 2-3, especially the learning and memory of language skills.
However, people know very little about the neural basis of early memory function Less
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Recently, researchers at the University of California-Davis (University of California-Davis) observed for the first time how certain areas of the brain activate when a 2-year-old baby hears learned words while sleeping
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These findings provide new insights into the brain mechanisms of early childhood memory and word learning, and are expected to help research how to improve children’s early language learning and memory
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For example, will playing English recordings when babies fall asleep help them learn English or consolidate their memory? ▲The paper was published in the "Current Biology" magazine (picture source: screenshot of the paper page) The hippocampus located in the medial temporal lobe (MTL) plays an important role in brain learning and is indispensable for the formation and storage of memories Part
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The corresponding author of the paper, Professor Simona Ghetti, explained: “At the age of 2 to 3, children have entered a unique age in memory development, and the first 2 years after birth are the period of vigorous hippocampus development
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And functional MRI (FMRI) technology, so that we can now use sleep to observe the underlying brain mechanism of children learning new words
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" Picture source: 123RF The brain activates the response before hearing the song
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Therefore, they decided to further explore how children’s brains when they fall asleep affect their memory of words
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▲The setup process of the experiment (picture source: Reference [1]) Researchers fabricated a series of "fake words" based on real language pronunciation as the names of objects and puppets
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In the first phase of the experiment, they tried to make 25-32-month-old children (n=38) remember the names of two objects and two puppets by repeating the target words.
After a few minutes, they tested the children’s ability to words.
Memorize and record fMRI scan data
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A week later, the researchers tested again whether the children remembered the names of objects and puppets
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After that, the researchers played the words they learned and other words they hadn't learned in the children's sleep, and observed the activation of brain regions through fMRI scans
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Researchers found that whether it was shortly after learning or one week later, young children showed a strong association between memorizing fake words and referring objects
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The results of fMRI scan data show that when sleeping children "hear" the words they have learned before, the left hippocampus and the left front MTL of the brain that manage the learning of new words will be activated
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Moreover, this activation is positively correlated with the performance of children when they first learned words a week ago, indicating that the hippocampus is particularly important for building initial memory of words
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▲The fMRI scan shows that compared with ordinary vocabulary, the words learned by sleeping children are positively correlated with the activation of the left hippocampus (green) and the left front (MTL) (picture source: reference [1]).
However, despite being young 'S children are quickly forming memories of new words, but at the same time they are forgetting a lot
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Professor Ghetti said: "When we form a complete memory, it needs to include context: where, when, and what happened
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" It is not clear how children remember the name of the target object when they lose the context
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Researchers suspect that overlapping learning experiences will interfere with each other, and believe that the hippocampal cortex is not only responsible for early learning of new words, but also supports arbitrary association-assisted learning of memory
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They plan to continue to explore the memory processes that support these changes in future research
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References: [1] Johnson, EG, Mooney, L.
, Graf Estes, K.
, Nordahl, CW, & Ghetti, S.
(2021).
Activation for newly learned words in left medial-temporal lobe during toddlers' sleep is associated with memory for words.
Current Biology.
Published.
https://doi.
org/10.
1016/j.
cub.
2021.
09.
058[2] Brain activation in sleeping toddlers shows memory for words.
Retrieved October 19, 2021, from https: //