[Sleep-wake cycle and memory consolidation].

Although several hypothesis and theories have been advanced as explanations for the functions of sleep, a unified theory of sleep function remains elusive. Sleep has been implicated in the plastic cerebral changes that underlie learning and memory, in particular those related to memory consolidation of recently acquired new information. Despite steady accumulations of positive findings over the last ten years, the precise role of sleep in memory and brain plasticity is unproven at all. This situation might be solved by more integrated approaches that combine behavioral and neurophysiological measurements in well described in vivo models of neuronal activity and brain plasticity.