​Furman Alum, Student Receive NSF Fellowships

​"The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded grants through the Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) to a Furman University student and a Furman alumnus.

"The recipients are Furman senior chemistry major Daniela Mesa Sanchez of Greer, S.C., and Matthew (Matt) Whitmire, a 2015 Furman neuroscience graduate and current Ph.D. candidate at University of Texas at Austin." Read More

Professor Receives $347,000 NIMH Grant

"Erin Wamsley, an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Furman University, has received a $347,000 grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) to study the effect of waking rest on memory.

"The three-year Academic Research Enhancement Award will support Wamsley’s ongoing research at the Furman Sleep Laboratory, where she and her students study how the brain processes memories during sleep, as well as the relationship of sleep-dependent memory processing to dream experiences." Read More

Daydream Your Way to Better Grades

"A recent EEG study at Furman University explored the possibility that non-sleep resting states may facilitate memory consolidation in a manner similar to that experienced in sleep.  Participants listened to a short story, and then either rested with their eyes closed (without sleeping), or played a video game for fifteen minutes, and were then administered a delayed recall test on the content of the story.  As hypothesized, the quiet resters demonstrated better recall of the story than the gamers did." Read More

Why You Can't Dial a Phone, Read a Book, or Escape a Monster in Your Dreams

"'We spend a third of our lives sleeping and perhaps all of that time dreaming, and the function is really unknown. And that’s unlike any other basic human activity — we all eat, and we really know a lot about why it is people have to eat. But we don’t know a lot about why it is people have to sleep and why it is really everyone dreams every night."' Read More

The Science of Sleep: Understanding the Effects of Rest and Sleep on Human Memory

"Since a third of a person’s life is spent sleeping, Wamsley is hoping to find questions to a host of questions about sleep and memory, including how memories are transformed during sleep, how emotion influences memory processing during sleep, and why and how the sleeping brain generates dreams.

"She’s hoping to add more to the big picture of how human memory works, both long-term and short-term. 'When you learn something, the life of a memory is not over,' she said." Read More

To Sleep, Perchance to Remember?

"Sleep. Most of us look forward to it as a way to recuperate from a hectic day and prepare our bodies and minds for the next. But researchers at Furman University are looking at another function of sleep that isn't typically associated with slumber - memory.

"'Even though we spend about a third of our lives sleeping, we don't fully understand why people have to sleep,' said Erin J. Wamsley, assistant professor of psychology at Furman." Read More