Posted on the Daily News Nov. 22, 2000 (University Affairs section)

Brain needs sleep to consolidate new skills, study says

New research shows that new skills and memories can slip right out of the brain unless
sleep has a chance to catch them. Harvard Medical School researcher
Robert Stickgold said the findings mean all-night cramming sessions likely
won't work unless the student gets the necessary sleep. “We think that
getting that first night's sleep starts the process of memory consolidation,”
says Stickgold, whose study was published today in Nature Neuroscience. “It
seems that memories normally wash out of the brain unless some process
nails them down. My suspicion is that sleep is one of those things that does
the nailing down.” Stickgold and his colleagues got volunteers to stay up all
night after being taught a new computer task and found it impaired their
ability to learn the task. And no amount of sleep on the following two
nights made up for the all-nighter. “You need sleep that first night if you
want to improve on a task,” says Stickgold. (National Post, Nov. 22/00)