Most people know it from experience: After so many hours of being awake, your brain feels unable to absorb any moreâ??and several hours of sleep will refresh it.
Now new research from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health clarifies this phenomenon, supporting the idea that sleep plays a critical role in the brainâ??s ability to change in response to its environment. This ability, called plasticity, is at the heart of learning.
Reporting in the Jan. 20, 2008, online version of Nature Neuroscience, the UW-Madison scientists showed by several measures that synapses â?? nerve cell connections central to brain plasticity â?? were very strong when rodents had been awake and weak when they had been asleep.