Less Sleep Leads to Fewer Memories

(originally aired May 11, 2017) Guest: Rick Huganir, PhD, Director of the Johns Hopkins University Department of Neuroscience When you’re cramming on a deadline late at night, or frustrated by a problem you can’t seem to fix, maybe you’ve been given the advice to “just sleep on it.” A recent Johns Hopkins University study shows that that’s probably a good idea. The study was done in mice and found that while they were sleeping, their brains were hard at work reconfiguring lessons learned during the day into memories that changed the mice’s behavior the next day. The researchers believe a similar thing happens when humans sleep.