For people who rarely forget a face but struggle with names, the solution could be as close as your pillow.

Northwestern University’s new study is the first to show how reactivating memory while sleeping affects face-name learning.

When people’s memories of newly taught face-name connections were reactivated while they were sleeping, the researchers discovered that their name recall improved dramatically. The most important factor in this improvement was uninterrupted deep sleep.

“It’s a new and exciting finding about sleep, because it tells us that the way information is reactivated during sleep to improve memory storage is linked with high-quality sleep,” says lead author Nathan Whitmore.

The researchers discovered that memory reactivation did not help and may even be harmful for study participants who had interrupted sleep as measured by EEG (a recording of the brain’s electrical activity picked up by electrodes on the scalp). However, in individuals who slept uninterrupted during the times of sound presentations, reactivation resulted in a relative improvement of little over 1.5 additional names recalled.

The experiment involved 24 people aged 18 to 31 who were asked to memorize the faces and names of 40 students from a hypothetical Latin American history class and another 40 students from a hypothetical Japanese history class. They were then asked to recall the name associated with each face. Following the learning exercise, individuals had a nap while the researchers used EEG measurements to closely monitor brain activity. When participants reached the N3 “deep sleep” state, some of their names were quietly played on a speaker along with music from one of the classes.

When the participants awoke, they were re-evaluated on recognizing the faces and recalling the names associated with each face.

The findings on the link between sleep disruption and memory accuracy are interesting, according to the researchers, for several reasons.

“We already know that some sleep disorders like apnea can impair memory,” adds Whitmore. “Our research suggests a potential explanation for this — frequent sleep interruptions at night might be degrading memory.”

In order to learn more about the underlying brain mechanisms, the lab is currently doing a follow-up study to revive memories and intentionally interrupt sleep.

“This new line of research will let us address many interesting questions — like whether sleep disruption is always harmful or whether it could be used to weaken unwanted memories,” adds Ken Paller, senior author. “At any rate, we are increasingly finding good reasons to value high-quality sleep.”

Source: 10.1038/s41539-021-00119-2

Image Credit: Getty

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