Sleep is often said to help the brain “lock in” what we learn while awake, but the underlying biology remains a topic of debate. A new study published in The Journal of Neuroscience provides evidence that sleep spindles — brief bursts of brain activity that occur during light non-REM sleep — may help reinforce motor memories by targeting the specific brain areas used during learning. The findings suggest that sleep spindles are not random but instead follow a targeted pattern that supports learning. Rather than occurring uniformly across the brain, spindles appear to concentrate in cortical areas activated during a task, potentially making them a better indicator of memory consolidation than general spindle activity. psypost.org/harvard-scien.. #Brain Journey Network