Breaks help retain information for long: Study

London : Taking a break after learning something new helps retain information for long, according to a study.

\"Taking a coffee break after a class can actually help retain the information a person has just learned,\" said Dr Lila Davachi, one of the researcher and an assistant professor at the New York University\'s

(NYU) Department of Psychology and Center for Neural Science.

The study, which appeared in the journal Neuron, suggested that even a short rest or break while conscious could help brain sort and retain information.

It also helps explain why we remember some knowledge in exquisite detail but forget others almost immediately, thus expanding our understanding of how memories are boosted.

For the study, the researchers studied the brain activity of subjects while at work, they were shown pairs of images -- a human face and an object, such as a beach ball, or a human face and a scene, such as a beach -- and the ensuing rest period.

Subjects were not informed their memory for these images would later be tested. They were rather asked to rest and think about anything that they wanted, but to remain awake during the period.

The researchers imaged the parts of the brain -- the hippocampus and the cortical regions -- known to play a significant role in memory. Using the functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI), the researchers found that the areas of the brain responsible for restoring information were equally active while learning the task and during rest.

Also, the greater the correlation between rest and learning, the greater the chance of remembering the task in later tests.

\"Your brain is working for you when you\'re resting, so rest is important for memory and cognitive function,\" Dr Davachi said.

\"This is something we don\'t appreciate much, especially when today\'s information technologies keep us working round-the-clock,\" the Telegraph quoted Dr Davachi as saying.

Experiments in humans and mice show that memories are first stored in the hippocampus, a sea horse shaped part of the central brain, before being \"replayed\" and then being filed in the outer neocortex, otherwise known as grey matter.
News From: http://www.Time2timeNews.com