Scientist have implanted conscious memories into the minds of mice while they sleep. In the future, the breakthrough technique could be used to alter memories of people who have undergone traumatic events, says New Scientist.
During sleep, the brain plays a rerun of the previous day, and the brain "practices" new activities encountered, the activity speeding up when reliving a new activity. Scientists believe the process is an essential part of learning. When a lack of sleep interferes with the replay, the brain doesn't remember what took place the previous day as well as if the person had a good night's sleep.
Researchers at France's Industrial Physics and Chemistry Higher Educational Institution in Paris took control over the process and used it to create new memories in sleeping mice. They identified "place" cells in their brains — neurons that fire when thinking about or being in a specific place. They then monitored mice during the day and noted the activity of the brain when the mice explored those specific spots. Then while they were sleeping, an electrode stimulated the area of the brain linked to reward.
When awakened, the mice immediately went to the location linked to the feeling of reward, showing that a brand new pleasant "fake" memory had been created.
"The mouse is remembering enough abstract information to think ‘I want to go to a certain place', and go there when it wakes up," neuroscientist Neil Burgess of University College of London told New Scientist. "It's a bigger breakthrough [than previous studies] because it really does show what the man in the street would call a memory - the ability to bring to mind abstract knowledge which can guide behavior in a directed way."
Scientists hope the technique will one day help people who suffer from depression or have traumatic memories. "I think this is a really important step towards helping people with memory impairments or depression," Loren Frank of the University of California, San Francisco, told New Science. "It is surprising to me how many neurological and psychiatric illnesses have something to do with memory, including schizophrenia and obsessive compulsive disorder."
"In principle, you could selectively change brain processing during sleep to soften memories or change their emotional content," he said.
To read the entire
New Scientist article, go
here.
© 2026 NewsmaxHealth. All rights reserved.