A SHORT NAP IMPROVES MEMORY ACQUISITION BUT NOT CONSOLIDATION IN A SCHOOL SETTING

Sleep deprivation is prevalent among high school students and negatively affects academic performance. During sleep, recently acquired memories are reactivated and consolidated, while slow-wave sleep also promotes synaptic downscaling, restoring the capacity for new encoding. Here, we assessed whether a short nap in the school setting improves both memory consolidation and subsequent memory acquisition. Students were randomly assigned to a Nap or a Wakefulness group. Participants first learned the content of a class, then either napped or remained awake, and afterwards learned the content of a second class. Consolidation of the first class was evaluated before and after the nap/wakefulness period, and acquisition of the second class was assessed immediately after learning it. Results showed that the nap did not improve consolidation of information acquired before the nap, but it did enhance acquisition of information learned afterwards. These findings suggest that, in a school setting, a short nap may not be sufficient to promote memory consolidation, but can still benefit the encoding of new information, highlighting a dissociation between its effects on different memory processes.