Sleep, Memory, and Plasticity

Annual Review of Psychology

Vol. 57:139-166 (Volume publication date 10 January 2006)
First published online as a Review in Advance on October 3, 2005
https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.56.091103.070307

Abstract

Although the functions of sleep remain largely unknown, one of the most exciting hypotheses is that sleep contributes importantly to processes of memory and brain plasticity. Over the past decade, a large body of work, spanning most of the neurosciences, has provided a substantive body of evidence supporting this role of sleep in what is becoming known as sleep-dependent memory processing. We review these findings, focusing specifically on the role of sleep in (a) memory encoding, (b) memory consolidation, (c) brain plasticity, and (d) memory reconsolidation; we finish with a summary of the field and its potential future directions.

Keywords