ArticleNature neuroscience2012
Humans can learn new information during sleep.
Article in Nature neuroscience, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 91 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
91 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Promoting memory consolidation during sleep: A meta-analysis of targeted memory reactivation.Psychological bulletin · 2020Pooled it
- Effect of treatment with a full-occlusion biofeedback splint on sleep bruxism and TMD pain: a randomized controlled clinical trial.Clinical oral investigations · 2020Trial
- Lack of frequency-tagged magnetic responses suggests statistical regularities remain undetected during NREM sleep.Scientific reports · 2018Trial
- Effect of conditioned stimulus exposure during slow wave sleep on fear memory extinction in humans.Sleep · 2015Trial
- Feasibility of an interval, inspiration-triggered nocturnal odorant application by a novel device: a patient-blinded, randomised crossover, pilot trial on mood and sleep quality of depressed female inpatients.European archives of oto-rhino-laryngology : official journal of the European Federation of Oto-Rhino-Laryngological Societies (EUFOS) : affiliated with the German Society for Oto-Rhino-Laryngology - Head and Neck Surgery · 2014Trial
- Trial
- Cross-Night Modulation of Change Detection ERPs to Foreign Speech Sound Features During N2 Sleep.The European journal of neuroscience · 2026Article
- How sleeping minds decide: State-specific reconfigurations of lexical decision-making.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- Effect of aromatic stimulation on CPAP adherence and sleep quality in patients with obstructive sleep apnea: a pilot study.BMC complementary medicine and therapies · 2026Observational
- Investigating dreams by strategically presenting sounds during REM sleep to reactivate waking experiences.Neuropsychologia · 2025Article
- Updating social evaluation during sleep.NPJ science of learning · 2025Article
- Targeted memory reactivation during REM sleep may selectively enhance the late positive potential amplitude in previously encountered negative images: preliminary findings.Sleep advances : a journal of the Sleep Research Society · 2025Article
- The Disputable Costs of Sleeping.Biology · 2025Review
- Characterizing Olfactory Brain Responses in Young Infants.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Article
- Sleep microstructure organizes memory replay.Nature · 2025Article
- Sleep on it!Brain communications · 2025Article
- Respiration-triggered olfactory stimulation reduces obstructive sleep apnea severity: A prospective pilot study.Journal of sleep research · 2024Article
- Humans without a sense of smell breathe differently.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Review
- Article
31 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
During sleep, humans can strengthen previously acquired memories, but whether they can acquire entirely new information remains unknown. The nonverbal nature of the olfactory sniff response, in which pleasant odors drive stronger sniffs and unpleasant odors drive weaker sniffs, allowed us to test learning in humans during sleep. Using partial-reinforcement trace conditioning, we paired pleasant and unpleasant odors with different tones during sleep and then measured the sniff response to tones alone during the same nights' sleep and during ensuing wake. We found that sleeping subjects learned novel associations between tones and odors such that they then sniffed in response to tones alone. Moreover, these newly learned tone-induced sniffs differed according to the odor pleasantness that was previously associated with the tone during sleep. This acquired behavior persisted throughout the night and into ensuing wake, without later awareness of the learning process. Thus, humans learned new information during sleep.
Indexed as
Identifiers
22922782What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.