Memory reactivations during sleep: a neural basis of dream experiences?

Published on March 23, 2023

Several decades of research shows that sleep plays an important role in memory consolidation, the process by which short-term memory is strengthened and integrated into long-term memory networks. Memory reactivations (see Glossary, also often referred to as neural replay), whereby newly formed memory traces become spontaneously active again after encoding, have been proposed as one mechanism for memory consolidation during sleep in the active system consolidation model [1–4]. A publicly discussed view is that dreaming (i.e., any conscious experience during sleep) could be the manifestation of these memory reactivations during sleep (e.g., [5,6]).

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