In a University of California, San Francisco, study on the effect of downtime, researchers gave rats a new experience and measured their brain waves during and after the activity. Under most circumstances, a new experience will express new neural activity and new neurons in the brain—that is, if the rat is allowed to have downtime. With downtime, the neurons made their way from the gateway of memory to the rest of the brain, where long-term memory is stored. The rats were able to record memories of their experiences, which is the basis for learning.
