Brain resets during sleep; guess why I need my 5 shot espressos in the morning.
Summary: Researchers examine if the size of synapses alters during sleep and wake states.
Source: University of Wisconsin Madison.
Striking electron microscope pictures from inside the brains of mice suggest what happens in our own brain every day: Our synapses – the junctions between nerve cells – grow strong and large during the stimulation of daytime, then shrink by nearly 20 percent while we sleep, creating room for more growth and learning the next day.
The four-year research project published today in Science offers a direct visual proof of the “synaptic homeostasis hypothesis” (SHY) proposed by Drs. Chiara Cirelli and Giulio Tononi of the Wisconsin Center for Sleep and Consciousness.
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