HHS HealthBeat (April 14, 2008)

Deep sleep

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

A study finds the amount of deep sleep you get can affect your visual learning.

Researcher Daniel Aeschbach at Brigham and Women’s Hospital observed brain waves in people while they were asleep.

Those who slept normally for four hours were able to learn a visual skill to distinguish between certain patterns shown on a computer screen.  In contrast, those who were prevented with targeted acoustic tones from falling into deep sleep did not learn the skill.

Aeschbach concludes:

“Deep sleep plays a role in the brain to not only recover, but maybe even to learn new tasks.”  (8 seconds)

Aeschbach says it’s important to get plenty of sleep, particularly in a quiet room free of interruptions.

The study supported by the National Institutes of Health was in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Learn more at hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  I’m Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: April, 14 2008