Memory and learning improve with sleep. That’s according to experts from Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital. While you sleep your brain is working hard memorizing new skills and filing them for effective use when you wake. Without sleep, it may be tougher to master those new tasks.

Babies, children and teens need more sleep than adults. This may be because more of the information they take in is brand new. It may take a great deal of sleep to consolidate all that information.

In a memory test, 12 healthy adults they were tested 12 hours after being taught a morning lesson. The were also tested 12 hours after being taught a lesson in the evening. The test subjects performed better when tested on the skills they learned in the evening lesson. This may be because the subjects got a chance to go home and get a normal nights rest before that test.

The researchers used a brain imaging scan while the subjects were tested. The brain showed different brain activity patterns after sleep. The lower part of the brain which controls speed and accuracy was clearly more active when the subjects had a night of sleep. The central parts of the brain which are involved in stress and emotions like anxiety were less active after sleep.

The MRI scans also showed that the active brains regions shift dramatically during sleep. This seems to indicate that the subjects were shifting memory to more efficient storage locations within the brain. Thus when you awake, memory tasks can be performed both more quickly and accurately, and with less stress and anxiety.

If it is your style to burn the midnight oil during the week, it may not be possible to make up for it in a weekend sleep binge. The researchers concluded that it is difficult to learn effectively when you brain is shortchanged of sleep.