Sleep plays an important role in the brain’s ability to
consolidate learning when two new potentially competing tasks are learned in
the same day, research at the University of Chicago demonstrates.
Other studies have shown that sleep consolidates learning for
a new task. The new study, which measured starlings’ ability to recognize new
songs, shows that learning a second task can undermine the performance of a
previously learned task. But this study is the first to show that a good
night’s sleep helps the brain retain both new memories.