Scientists Have Found That Learning in Our Sleep is Possible – study

Wednesday 29th August 2012

A study conducted on 55 people at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel has found that it is possible to learn things whilst being asleep, even though you have no conscious recollection of it.

The study consisted of participants being completely asleep and subjected to a sound and then a smell. The smells ranged from shampoo to rotting fish and with each smell, a different sound was played. This type of conditioning involves the hippocampus; a part of the brain which plays important role in the consolidation of information from short-term to long-term memory.

When the participants heard the tones by themselves whilst sleeping they would react accordingly, taking a deep breath if it was linked to a pleasant smell or a shallow one if it was linked to an unpleasant smell. The same test was also done on the subjects the next day when they were awake to see how they would react to the noises with no accompanying smell. Even though they had no conscious recollection of hearing the tones and their paired scent they reacted the same way as they did in the previous night; sniffing deeply to a sound that was associated with a nice smell and shallow sniffs for the sounds related to the bad smells.

This study has shown that some kind of learning is possible while sleeping, and now the researchers at the institute want to try and find where the limits lie, and what information is possible to learn while we are asleep.

Tags: sleep brain study

Category: Sleep Research

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