With reference to sleep consolidated learning. . .
To my knowledge, this is pretty much correct. It was based on studies of
rats who had learnt to navigate mazes. The study involved recording from
`place’ cells in the hippocampus (I think that’s the region) that are
activated in response to specific cues relating to a physical region and
orientation. Different place cells are activated according to where the
rat is in the maze. The bit about learning in your sleep came from the
observation that when the rats were sleeping, their place cells would fire
up in the order that they were running through the maze. Rats that showed
this activity learnt the mazes faster than those that didn’t show the
sleep-activity.
This led to the hypothesis that you `relive’ your days experiences when
you sleep, consolidating the important bits. This could be how come our
dreams often relate to what we did in the previous day or week.
A related thing is the so-called ‘motor-memory’ or ‘muscle-memory’. This
involves cerebellum networks that control repetitive muscle actions like
playing the piano and juggling (two of my favourite hobbies). As the
pathways become potentiated, they are more easily activated and you can do
things faster, easier and subconsciously. The motor-memory is not actually
in your muscles, it’s in the back of your head. I’m pretty certain it
would apply to all balance related activites like unicycling.
nic (not a qualified neurosurgeon, but a neuroscience student who has
done neurosurgery - when I’m running a research lab, you can be sure
juggling and unicycling are going to figure highly on my research
activities. Hrmmm, how can I get the NIH to fund research involving
teaching rats to unicycle)
On Sat, 27 Oct 2001, Klaas Bil wrote:
> I don’t KNOW about this subject but I’d like to share something related.
>
> I have read that during sleep (especially the sleep later in the night,
> after about 5 hours IIRC) the things you have leared the previous day
> are “consolidated” in your memory. I don’t know how this works, maybe by
> transfer for short-term to long-term memory, or by repeatedly "going
> over it" so that it becomes engraved. The advice was given that if
> you’re studying, be sure to have enough sleep so that you get to that
> late-stage sleep and effectively retain what you learned.
>
> Klaas Bil
>
> On Sat, 27 Oct 2001 13:35:06 GMT, Christopher Grove
> <c_r_grove@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >I’m still quite a unicycling newbie. So every time I go out practicing
> >I notice a definite improvement over the last time. I mean that as soon
> >as I’m on I’m going farther and balancing better then when I had
> >finished up the last practice.
> >
> >Now… you could just put this down to the fact that at the end of the
> >last practice I was tired and at the beginning of this practice I’m
> >refreshed. BUT… it seems to me that I’ve heard somewhere that your
> >neural pathways actually improve (are laid down in the brain) after a
> >practice over-night while you are sleeping, not while the actual
> >practicing is going on. This is what I tend to tell people but I’d like
> >to know if there is anyone else out there who KNOWS about this topic?
> >
> >(Not that there are any unicycling neuro-surgeons out that read this
> >NG… though I’m quite sure that there must be some unicycling
> >neuro-surgeons in existence.)
> >
> >Christopher Grove
> >–
> >“Be Bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.” -Basil King (Anyone
> >who can give me more info on THIS Basil King please email
> >me.)
> >
> >My short story at: http://www.rosedog.com/manuscript.asp?m=9389256&man-
> >uscript=6862016&t=The+Determination+of+Jeffery&fn=Christopher&ln=Grove-
> >&srdt=9%2F27%2F01+5%3A32%3A05+AM&fs=2&ff=Arial%2C+Helvetica%2C+Verdana-
> >&ps=4000&s=735143750&folder=Search+Results
>
> –
> "To trigger/fool/saturate/overload Echelon, the following has been
> picked automagically from a database:" “North Korea, crack, Cuba”
