Whether it’s an ex-partner or an especially humiliating experience, we all have things we’d want to forget.
Researchers have discovered that playing noises to people while they sleep can help them forget unpleasant memories.
The group from the University of York is hopeful that their discoveries will open the way for approaches that can help weaken painful and bothersome memories.
For the study, the team recruited 29 volunteers who learned two overlapping pairs of phrases, such as David Beckham and bicycle and bicycle and castle.
During the process of learning both pairs, the word bicycle was also spoken aloud.
The participants then fell asleep, and when they entered slow-wave sleep, sometimes known as deep sleep, the word “bicycle” was played again.
Upon awakening, their memory was examined.
Compared to a control scenario in which the corresponding noises were not played during sleep, memory for one pair was enhanced while the other pair appeared to be forgotten.
Dr. Bardur Joensen, the study’s lead author, stated, “Although the results of our study are still very experimental at this time, they open the prospect that we can both boost and diminish the ability to recall certain memories by playing sound cues while a person is asleep.”
The memory of traumatic experiences can cause a variety of uncomfortable symptoms in persons who have endured trauma.
Our study could pave the way for novel ways for diminishing these memories, which could be utilized in conjunction with existing medicines.
Learning a pair of words and playing a sound linked with that pair during sleep increased participants’ memory for the word pair when they awoke in the morning, according to previous studies.
However, this is the first time they have demonstrated a decline in memory for a particular word combination, showing that it is possible to induce selective forgetting by playing linked sounds during sleep.
Dr. Aidan Horner, a senior author, stated that the link between sleep and memory is remarkable.
‘We are aware that sleep is necessary for memory consolidation, and our memories are normally enhanced after a time of sleep.
‘The precise mechanisms at play are unknown, but it appears that during sleep, vital connections are reinforced and insignificant ones are deleted.’
Dr. Horner noted that the impact is presumably the result of rivalry between the overlapping memories.
‘It may be conceivable to correlate one component of a past real-world memory with a new occurrence, such as a specific place where an event occurred,’ he said.
If we could employ sound signals during sleep to selectively enhance memory for this newly learned experience, this may have the effect of diminishing memory for the initial event.
