Dr. Matt Walker

Because in all of these studies, including my own, even if I boost your sleep tonight, Andrew Huberman, my next, if that's the result that you show me, I have four words for you as a scientist.

Yes, and so what?

Is it fascinating?

functional because if i boost your sleep but it doesn't change anything to you the organism the next day i'm going to suggest that that enhancement is epiphenomenal not functional

Correct.

So even if I, for example, lower your blood pressure with a new drug, if I'm not changing your cardiovascular disease risk, then the question is, why am I just continuing on with the drug if it's not really changing much?

Same thing here.

And what they found was that when they did the memory test the next morning, by enhancing that deep sleep, there actually wasn't a memory benefit.

So perhaps what was happening is that this was just nonspecific.

So again, they then returned and now others have returned to the closed loop mechanism.

where now I've got electrodes on your head and I'm measuring your slow brainwaves.

And literally, I am next door in the room and I'm watching those slow brainwaves go up and down.

And then I've got a computer algorithm that is watching those, watching, in quotes, watching that too.

And it's predicting when the next wave is going to come.

And when it does...

auditory tone clicks, sub-awakening, you don't wake up.

And sure enough, when you sort of tone into the brain at that time, you boost the size of that brainwave.

And once again, they boosted the size of those deep sleep brainwaves.

They also improved those more quick bursts of activity, the sleep spindles.

And now sure enough, they were able to improve memory.