Sleep Aids Learning

"Sleep has a crucial role in learning and memory," writes Annette Karmiloff-Smith from the University of London, in Developing Brains, a publication of The Open University, with the support of the Bernard van Leer Foundation. 

"It used to be thought that sleep was when the brain took a rest, ticking over for vital functions like breathing.  In reality, some parts of our brain are more active during sleep than when we are awake.  Between infancy and adulthood, we spend more than one-third of our lives asleep, during which the body replenishes its energy and the brain re-processes experiences stored during waking hours.

"[In a study] infants who napped within 4 hours of exposure to an artificial language remembered the general grammatical pattern of the language 24 hours later, whereas those who had no nap showed no evidence of remembering the language.  The findings support the view that infants' frequent napping plays an essential role in consolidating knowledge in long-term memory."

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