Apr 6, 2026
- College of Health researcher Genevieve Albouy, PhD, published two studies examining how sleep supports memory formation and consolidation
- Findings challenge long-held assumptions about how different types of memory are processed in the brain
- A new three-year National Science Foundation grant will support future research with potential therapeutic applications
Research led by a College of Health researcher is challenging what we know about the formation of memories–and pointing toward surprising ways we can improve memory.
Genevieve Albouy, PhD, a researcher in the Department of Health and Kinesiology, has recently published two studies on memory formation and retention. And now a three-year National Science Foundation (NSF) grant will help further research leveraging her findings, potentially leading to enhanced memory formation and therapeutic uses.
The key to better memories? Better sleep, Albouy says.
The mysteries of sleep, and the effect sleep has on our lives, have long fascinated Albouy. She studied at the University of Lyon in France, which has a storied history of sleep research. She worked in a lab with many influential sleep researchers early in her career.
"I became passionate about the function of sleep during my time in Lyon. We spend one- third of our lives sleeping, yet, the role of sleep is still poorly understood," Albouy says. "One function of sleep I found absolutely fascinating was plasticity, or the brain's ability to change and adapt, and memory consolidation."
Now, Albouy uses advanced equipment at the Utah Center for Advanced Imaging Research (UCAIR) neuroimaging facility to peek into how sleep shapes brain activity in people. That research is adding to the depth of knowledge about sleep and memory.
"For a very long time we thought sleep was an inactive state," Albouy explains. "But the sleeping brain is very active." This allows the brain to work at filing and storing memories that were made during the day.
When a person learns something new during the day, certain areas of their brain are activated. Learning a fact ('Paris is the capital of France') is a declarative memory and activates a set of specific brain areas. Learning a motor task like learning to play the piano, is a procedural memory and activates another set of brain regions. When that person sleeps, those same regions of the brain are reactivated.
In a recent study published in Nature Communications with collaborators from the KU Leuven in Belgium and the University of Montreal in Canada, Albouy's research team used imaging called electroencephalography to watch a sleeping subject's brain waves.
"When you sleep your brain waves are going up and down in a very specific way," Albouy says. Researchers know those waves are important for the consolidation process. By experimentally reactivating memories when the brain waves were on an upsweep, researchers were better able to strengthen the person's memory.
The second paper, published in PLoS Biology, looked at ways memories are connected and recalled. Declarative memories and procedural memories were long thought to be completely separated in the brain. That study tests the idea that some brain regions and processes might instead overlap between memory domains. The study was conducted by Ainsley Temudo, then a PhD student in cognitive and motor neuroscience supervised by Albouy.
"Temudo put together a really cool experiment," Albouy says.
Volunteers performed tasks while researchers scanned their brains. Watching that, they were able to tell what kind of memory the hippocampus was coding for. Researchers found the hippocampus sorts and files these different kinds of memories based on the sequence in which they were learned. "The hippocampus doesn't care about what you learned, but about the order," Albouy says. The NSF grant recently awarded to Albouy and co-investigator Brad King, PhD, also from the Department of Health and Kinesiology, will allow the team to leverage the shared functions mentioned above to enhance memory.
Albouy says they are still in the fundamental research stages. But researchers may be able to develop techniques to repair damaged memory, or help people afflicted with neurological disorders.
"If you have one motor memory that's a bit weak, like in a Parksinson's patient, but you have a memory from the other domain that's linked by association, you could try to rescue the memory that's showing some deficit.”
By peering into the sleeping mind, researchers are revealing just how vital sleep is to both body and brain. And as science continues to uncover sleep’s role in shaping memory, it may prove to be one of the most powerful tools we have for strengthening our waking lives.