They found that rather than the cortex being at rest during NREM sleep, assemblies of neurons work together to form long-term memories. The researchers decided to study what happens during delta waves themselves, in the silence, that was previously unexplored. Instead of neurons remaining at rest, the findings were quite the opposite.
Small, coactive sets of neurons that code information become active in the silence, as though they require this quiet time for focus. In particular, they found that neurons responsible for spatial memory learning were activated alongside other spontaneous reactivations of the hippocampus. The fascinating result of the research was that when the correct neurons were isolated in animal models they were more able to stabilize their memories when faced with a spatial test the following day.
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