© Michaël Zugaro Left: illustration of the experimental device. Right: rats are placed on a miniature treadmill and transported by an electric train (the locomotive is placed behind the car so as not to mask the field of vision). Displacements can be active (treadmill on) to preserve the “nested” sequences or passive (treadmill off), to disturb them selectively, without altering the slow sequences.
A research team from CNRS, Université PSL, the Collège de France and Inserm has just lifted part of the veil surrounding brain activity during sleep. Though we know that some neurons are reactivated then to consolidate our memories, we did not know how these cells could “remember” which order to turn on in. The researchers have discovered that reactivating neurons during sleep relies on activation that occurs during the day: “nested” theta sequences. These results were published on November 9, 2018 in Science . Repetition is the best method for memorization, for neurons themselves. This is the principle behind what neurobiologists call sequence reactivations: during sleep, neurons in the hippocampus related to a task activate very quickly in turn in a precise order, which consolidates the memory of this task. Sequence reactivations are fundamental for long-term memorization and for exchanges between the hippocampus and the rest of the brain.
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