Small Study: Brains May Work On Tasks While Asleep

The Today Show Online (9/12, Carroll) reports research suggests that, as we sleep our brains are “organizing and storing away memories of events,” as well as “open to other activities.” a study of 18 people published Thursday in Current Biology found “that the brain can be started on a task just as a person is dropping off to sleep and then, during slumber, take in new auditory information and then process it.”

However, Dr. Alon Avidan, a professor of neurology at the University of California, Los Angeles and director of the UCLA Sleep Disorders Center, warned that having the mind deal with additional tasks while asleep could affect its processing of memories or impair its restorative properties.

Related Links:

— “To sleep, perchance to study: New research shows how brain learns while dozing,” Linda Carroll, Today Show, September 11, 2014.

Posted in In The News.