Scientists and science students are taking an increasing interest in communicating their research to the public. Mo is a neuroscientist with a popular blog, Neurophilosophy, which collects the most interesting finds in neuroscience and presents them in accessible ways. We asked him to write a short piece for Dream Lab on the function of sleep and its relation to memory – a topic especially interesting to students!

‘We spend approximately one third of our lives asleep, but the exact function of what Edgar Allan Poe called “those little splices of death” has long eluded researchers. In recent years, though, numerous studies have provided evidence that sleep is essential for the consolidation of newly formed memories.

Some of these studies involve presenting two groups of participants with a list of words to memorize. One group is then told to get a good night’s sleep, while the other is made to stay awake. When asked to recall the word list the following day, those participants who slept are found to perform consistently better than those who don’t. The same appears to be true for other forms of memory, such as learning a sequence of finger movements (a form of motor learning). And it is not just long periods of sleep which enhance memory formation – day-time power naps have been shown to have the same effect.

Conversely, sleep deprivation has been found to have an adverse effect on memory. In one recent study, volunteers were first asked to learn a word list; later on, they were shown the same list, but unbeknownst to them, the researchers had added some new words. When asked to recall whether each of these words was present in the first. Sleep-deprived participants gave more false responses than those allowed to sleep. Intriguingly, the false memories induced by sleep loss were reduced by caffeine – sleep-deprived participants who drank a cup of coffee before the recall trial produced 10% fewer false responses than those who did not.
How sleep enhances memory is unclear. Memory formation is widely believed to be involve the strengthening of synapses, the junctions at which nerve cells communicate with one another. It was long thought that the brain rests during sleep, but this is not the case. While apparently off-line, it buzzes with activity, and in fact is more active in sleep than it is during waking hours. This may be because the brain is replaying the day’s experiences, by activating the pathways which encode them. In so doing, it may also be strengthening the appropriate connections, and facilitating the transfer of memories from the parts of the brain where they are formed to those involved in their long-term storage.’

See Mo’s blog for more topics related to the brain and science research.

Nick Knight’s ‘Sleep’ is a lyrical exploration of what could be called the aesthetics of sleep. Currently showing at the impressive vaulted galleries of London’s Somerset House, SHOWstudio’s ‘Fashion Revolution’ is a collection of visually-led art installations that turn the lens on fashion. ‘Sleep’ was just one of these. The SHOWstudio website describes the idea and methodology:

On 10 & 11 December 2001, nine top models arrived at The Metropolitan Hotel to participate in the first ever global, live fashion shoot. The girls were dressed by stylists, had their hair, make-up and nails groomed, and were put to bed in their separate hotel rooms. SHOWstudio viewers logged on at midnight and through the night as the models’ gentle slumber and gradual dishevelment was recorded in a series of intimate stills.

By broadcasting the models while asleep, Knight made a normally private act extremely public, reflecting the fashion industry’s obsession with celebrity. The fully-dressed models were perfectly poised at times and at others, seem to fall under the spell of sleep with all of its awkward positions: a further reminder of the universal nature of sleep, a phenomena which affects us all.

Explore the ‘Sleep’ project here, and the Somerset House exhibition here.

SCAN http://www.scansite.org  is the media arts agency developing digital and interdisciplinary arts in South England through national and international projects. Currently based in The Media School, Bournemouth University SCAN works in collaboration with the university and other organisations and individuals to create high quality interdisciplinary projects that present new models and ideas of practice.

I, as Director of SCAN, have worked at the intersection of art and science since mid-1990s and bring this experience to SCAN’s projects. I have a role as consultant curator on Tina Gonsalves’s project Chameleon (funded by Wellcome Trust and other supporters) looking at emotional contagion – stage 9 of this iterative project opens at Fabrica Gallery, Brighton UK on Friday October 2^nd  http://www.fabrica.org.uk  with the final piece due to be shown at Inspace, Edinburgh in May 2010 http://www.mediascot.org/

 SCAN has worked with Tina Gonsalves over a number of projects including the incorporation of Tina’s interactive jewellery piece Medulla Intimata for the conference Wearable Futures, 2005. Our work involves supporting the development of artists’ work over a period of time rather than through one-off commission or exhibition of work. Chameleon marks a significant development of  Gonsalves’ process and SCAN’s involvement in that work.  http://www.tinagonsalves.com

 SCAN’s interdisciplinary projects are broad and have included the development of  technological prototypes and tools for artists; facilitating artists working with physicists, engineers and neuroscientists; artists working with materials scientists and we are about to embark on a project looking at the role that bacterial behaviour can play in textile design.

 In relation to sleep and dreaming, I would like to draw your attention to two artists’ work that is relevant to this call. It demonstrates two different ways in which artists approach the subject of sleep in an interdisciplinary context.

 Emilia Telese’s work Sleepwalking recovered and reconstructed the journey Telese’s father made to the New Forest shortly before his death in September 2001, a journey from which she was absent. It is a daughter’s attempt to recreate the intimacy of lost memories, to share the unshared, to celebrate and remember her father’s life. Sleepwalking was also an insight into the physical aspects and consequences of sleep, its sensory implications and its quality during illness. Emilia filmed herself whilst asleep at a number of locations in the New Forest, at various times of day, during her residency at ArtSway in 2002.  She worked with psychologist Luca Becherini of University of Florence  to consider the affects of sleep psychologically and physiologically. http://www.emiliatelese.com/multimedia/sleepwalking/sleepwalking.php

 Luke Jerram’s Dream Director explores the boundaries of participants’ conscious and subconscious minds, prompting questions about the ethics of and possibilities for, creating art in dream space. It is also a new tool for sleep science and clinical applications that raises questions about the rules of interaction and boundaries of science and art. The Dream Director invites people to sleep overnight in a gallery. Specially designed “pods” house the dreamers who don eye-masks that detect rapid eye movement, indicating the dreaming stage of sleep. When the dreamers reach their dream state, their eye masks trigger ambient sounds via a computer, which are played into small speakers mounted into the pod, in an attempt to affect the nature and content of their dreams. http://www.dreamdirector.net