不睡觉也能形成新记忆(上)

This is Scientific American’s 60-Second Science. I’m Karen Hopkin.

这里是科学美国人——60秒科学系列，我是凯伦·霍普金。

When someone tells you to “sleep on it,” they’re usually suggesting that you avoid making rash decisions.

当有人告诉你“睡一觉再做决定(sleep on it)”时，他们通常是在建议你避免做出草率的决定。

But sleep is also widely known to help you remember things you’ve learned.

但众所周知，睡眠还能帮助你记住学到的东西。

Now, a nap might seem inconvenient when you’re cramming for an exam.

现在，你不得不在考试前临时抱佛脚，小睡一下似乎也不太方便。

But don’t worry. Because a new study shows that rats who stayed awake after engaging with novel objects could remember seeing those things a week later--sometimes better than rats who slept.

但是别担心。因为一项新的研究表明，相比好好睡觉，老鼠在接触新事物后如果保持醒着的状态，一周后它们对这些事物的记忆有时会表现得更好。

That suggests that long-term memories can be laid down without having to lay down.

这表明在睡眠缺失的情况下也可以形成长时记忆。

The results appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

这项研究结果发表在《美国国家科学院院刊》上。

“We know that memory consolidation is promoted by sleep,” Marion Inostroza of the University of Tubingen.

“我们知道睡眠会促进记忆巩固。” 美国图宾根大学的玛丽昂·伊诺斯特罗萨说。

She says that decades of studies have shown that sleep helps to transform or consolidate recent experiences into lasting memories.

她表示，数十年的研究表明，睡眠有助于将最近的经历转化成，或者说巩固成持久的记忆。

However, there’s also evidence for consolidation into long-term memory during wakefulness.

然而，也有证据表明，在保持清醒时也能巩固形成长时记忆。

And against this background, we became interested in the question whether sleep is the only condition, is the critical condition, for the formation of long -term memories.

在这种背景下，我们开始对睡眠是否是形成长时记忆的唯一关键条件这一问题产生了兴趣。

Jan Born directs the institute of medical psychology and behavioral neurobiology at the University of Tubingen.

图宾根大学医学心理学和行为神经生物学研究所负责人简·博恩说道。

For Born, the bottom line is:

对于博恩来说，基本论点就是：

Do we need sleep to form long-term memories?

我们需要睡眠来形成长时记忆吗？

To find out, the researchers allowed rats to investigate a novel object.

为了找出答案，研究人员让老鼠对一个新物体进行探索。

The animals were then moved to a “resting cage” where some were allowed to snooze, while others were gently kept awake.

然后将老鼠转移到一个“休息笼”中，只允许其中一部分老鼠打盹，而另一部分老鼠则以温柔的方式让它们保持清醒。

And we do that by very gentle knocking the cage where the animal is placed.

让它们保持清醒的方式是：非常轻柔地敲击老鼠所在的笼子。

Or by shaking very carefully the cage where the animal is located.

或者小心翼翼地摇动老鼠所在的笼子

One week later, the rats are returned to the testing cage and presented with the object they’d encountered previously, as well as one they’d never seen before.

一周后，这两组老鼠被送回测试笼，并给它们展示一周前遇到过的物体，以及一个它们以前从没见过的物体。

Now, if the rats remember the original item, they should spend less time nosing around it than they do sniffing the new new thing.

如果老鼠记得原先的物体，那么它们在旧物体周围嗅探的时间应该会比新物体更少。

And it turns out that’s the case for both rats that rested and those that pulled all-nighters or, all-afternooners.

研究结果表明，好好休息的老鼠和被迫熬夜的老鼠都是如此，

So, in this test, all the rats remembered the objects.

在这个测试中，所有的老鼠都记住了原先的物体。