8-hour sleep boosts language learning too, says study

New Delhi: Eight-hour sleep every night not only rejuvenates the body but also helps brain to store and learn a new language, according to a new study.

A team of international scientists, led by the University of South Australia and published in the Journal of Neuroscience, revealed that the coordination of two electrical events in the sleeping brain significantly improves our ability to remember new words and complex grammatical rules.

In an experiment with 35 native English-speaking adults, researchers tracked the brain activity of participants learning a miniature language called Mini Pinyin that is based on Mandarin but with similar grammatical rules to English.

Mini Pinyin contains 32 verbs and 25 nouns, including 10 human entities, 10 animals and five objects. Overall, the language contains 576 unique sentences.

Half of the participants learned Mini Pinyin in the morning and then returned in the evening to have their memory tested.

The other half learned Mini Pinyin in the evening and then slept in the laboratory overnight while their brain activity was recorded.

Researchers tested their progress in the morning. Those who slept performed significantly better compared to those who remained awake. “This coupling likely reflects the transfer of learned information from the hippocampus to the cortex, enhancing long-term memory storage,” said lead researcher Dr Zachariah Cross.

Sleep-based improvements were linked to the coupling of slow oscillations and sleep spindles – brainwave patterns that synchronise during NREM sleep.

“Post-sleep neural activity showed unique patterns of theta oscillations associated with cognitive control and memory consolidation, suggesting a strong link between sleep-induced brainwave co-ordination and learning outcomes,” Dr Cross added.

Researcher Dr Scott Coussens said the study underscores the importance of sleep in learning complex linguistic rules.

“By demonstrating how specific neural processes during sleep support memory consolidation, we provide a new perspective on how sleep disruption impacts language learning,” Dr Coussens said. “Sleep is not just restful; it’s an active, transformative state for the brain.”

The findings could also potentially inform treatments for individuals with language-related impairments, including autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and aphasia, who experience greater sleep disturbances than other adults.