In our next Researcher Live series, we will be focusing on ‘Sleep & Memory’ bringing you four fantastic speakers.

Join our first episode on 15^th November at 10 am BST for a talk with Dr Anthony Bloxham, Nottingham Trent University. Sign up here to receive email reminders for this series.

What are we going to talk about in this episode?

Despite leaving us vulnerable and unproductive for hours at a time, sleep plays a vitally important role in ensuring healthy physical and psychological functioning. Sleep is particularly beneficial for the consolidation (strengthening and stabilising) of new memories and important information.

This is believed to be an active process, in that patterns of brain activity which occurred during waking learning episodes seem to be replayed during sleep, perhaps indicating a reactivation of newly learned memories and information. 

These reactivations and replays occur naturally and spontaneously in certain stages of sleep, but they can also be triggered by covertly presented sounds or odours that are associated with what was learned, producing a modest but statistically significant ‘boost’ in recall or performance for those triggered memories. This method of ‘sleep engineering’ is called Targeted Memory Reactivation (TMR).

Meanwhile, dreams happen pervasively throughout sleep. The sources, functions and purposes of dreams remain an enduring mystery, but perhaps they are tied to sleep-bound memory reactivations, which might explain why we often dream about recent memories, concerns and experiences. Most interestingly, dreams are also susceptible to external sensory influences, like those applied in TMR. Disruptive sounds and sensations can be registered by the sleeping brain, and sometimes they become incorporated into ongoing dream content without causing awakenings, where they have the potential to alter the course of the dream in quite dramatic ways. In light of this, it may be possible to reactivate memories in dreams using TMR methods, and if this proves possible, it may bring us closer to understanding where dreams come from and what they might be dreams for.

Series programme:

• 15^th November, 10 am BST - ‘Reactivating memories in sleep and dreams’ with Dr Anthony Bloxham, Nottingham Trent University.

• 17^th November, 11 am BST – ‘Emotion regulation and Targeted Memory Reactivation in healthy controls and isolated REM Behaviour Disorder patients’ with Caterina Leitner, Sleep Medicine Centre of San Raffaele hospital

• 17^th November, 4 pm BST – ‘Why we don’t do well without sleep’ with Dr Scott Cairney, University of York

• 18^th November, 3 pm BST – ‘Evolving plasticity in the brain and behaviour after memory reactivation during sleep’ with Dr Martyna Rakowska, Cardiff University