Sleep as a way of learning about the world around us

It is known that newborn babies spend most of their time sleeping, but Colombian experts have found out that this is how they learn about the world around them. The experts confirm their conclusions with observations and a number of experiments on infants.

During the research, scientists found out that newborns constantly process information received during wakefulness, and their brains also process information during sleep. According to experts, this is what allows a new person to quickly adapt to our world. But the methods and ways of learning differ among different children, and the authors of the study provided the results of experiments involving newborn babies to confirm their findings.

During the experiment, the scientists alternately rattled the children with rattles and blew lightly on their eyelids. As a result, 24 out of 26 children after 20 minutes were already squeezing their eyelids tighter when they heard the rattle, as they associated this sound with the subsequent puff of air. At the same time, the devices recorded that all the children were in the deep sleep phase. According to the scientists, this confirms that children, while sleeping, can learn and explore a new world for them; using the example of the rattle, they were able to associate the sound of the rattle and the subsequent puff of air. At the same time, after the scientists stopped blowing on the children and only rattled the rattle, the children still continued to squeeze their eyelids when they heard the sounds, as if protecting themselves from the puff of air. According to psychobiologist Inge Maot Eigsti, the discovery is incredible, but the fact that the children, while asleep, understood the connection between the sound and the subsequent breath is obvious.

The authors of the study call their discovery a sensation, since it was previously believed that conditioned reflexes in humans can only be developed during wakefulness, but the experiment with newborns demonstrated the opposite. It is worth noting that the capabilities of the brain have been studied even less than half, so it is unknown what other capabilities our body hides.

Further experiments also confirmed that newborns are able to learn during sleep and can use previously acquired experience. During sleep, newborns update their memory, as indicated by certain wave oscillations in the brain of babies. Scientists believe that this discovery can be useful in diagnosing certain diseases, in particular, autism, attention deficit, learning disabilities, etc.

Several months ago, a group of scientists in the UK found that children perceive pain several times more strongly than adults, as they have a higher pain threshold. The experts made such conclusions after conducting several studies using a tomograph with the participation of 10 infants. Scientists noted that newborns, who are only a few weeks old, have a very high pain threshold, so they react extremely strongly to pain.

Using a tomograph (a device that allows you to get an X-ray image of a certain layer), scientists conducted a unique experiment - all the little participants were given injections during sleep and the tomograph recorded that the brain of newborns reacted to the procedure 4 times more strongly than that of adults. It is worth noting that it was previously believed that newborns do not feel pain at all, now, thanks to British specialists, little patients are injected with a painkiller during painful procedures.