Sleeping and memory

I came across a very interesting paper talking about the link between sleep and memory consolidation.

Sleep increases the retrieval of learnt information, especially information learnt before sleeping. Apparently, memory consolidation during sleep is common phenomenon among the animal kingdom. bees can remember their way to the hive better after they slept. The same is observed in birds and rats etc.

Any aspect that is conserved between species indicates that the aspect is successful.

During sleep the pathways that extend from the hippocampus and to the neocortex becomes active and memory becomes consolidated. this can be picked up from an electroencephalogram [ECG] as short wave sleep [non-REM]. There must be a specific pathway, that switches on specific genes that increases consolidation during sleep.


How can we switch on this pathway? We first need to know the specific proteins expressed and how changes in these leads to better consolidation?

Reference:

Vorster AP and Born J. 2014 Oct 7. Sleep and memory in mammals, birds and invertebrates. Neurosci Biobehav Rev.

How does memory work

There are 2 main theories on how we remember: those that fire together, wire together and bell theory.

Lets take a scenario. You see a mango, just by looking at that mango, another picture comes in your head, and you see your classmate on a mango branch extending her hand to reach for a ripe green mango. Along with this picture comes the feeling of excitement and giddiness, yes, she can almost reach it! yes! and she got it!!! The interesting thing is how can just one mango link to the picture that you saw in your head. There is a huge difference between the 2 scenes, both temporally and spatially.

the code would most likely be:
mango here, mango in Tanzania, mango from tree, [link?], my friend taking the mango from the tree, she got the mango, i am excited she got the mango.

Whatever the case, there is a similarity between one point and the next. It seems like there is a flow chart of memories.

I come to the conclusion that remembering something depends on a trigger, that will cause the memory to resurface. However, how is it that the nerves are organised that will bring about a complex phenomenon as remembering? Maybe, the wiring of memory is just a simple command that just happens to produce a complex behaviour? if so, what is the simple command??? How can it be beneficial to increase our memory?