Research suggests that lack of sleep may hinder memory formation.
Taiwan Awakening Daily reporter Li Yunhao/Comprehensive report
Sleep deprivation not only disrupts the biological clock and damages the endocrine system, but also hinders memory formation.A new study published by a multinational team from the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, and other countries indicates that insufficient sleep or poor sleep quality can affect the functioning of brain nerve cells, preventing the formation of "new memories."
Sleep deprivation impairs memory. Sleep deprivation has been proven to damage the brain.A study published in the journal *Psychological Science* by a team from Michigan State University and the University of California, Irvine, indicates that...Staying up late or getting less than 5 hours of sleep at night can lead to memory distortion and numerous errors, such as confusing previously viewed images, which in turn can mislead judgment and analytical abilities.。
A study published in the journal Neuroscience by a team from the University of Pennsylvania, the Jülich Research Centre in Germany, and Groningen University in the Netherlands shows that sleep deprivation impairs spatial memory in mice, but can be improved by increasing the concentration of cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) in the hippocampus of the brain.
University of Pennsylvania biology professor Ted Eppel explained that when animals sleep, the brain "stores" the information received while awake as memories, and the part responsible for forming memories is a group of "excitatory cells" in the hippocampus; the operation of this group of cells is affected by fluctuations in cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) concentration.
[New Memory Formation Hindered] Abel stated that in typical spatial memory tests on laboratory mice, the mice are placed in a box containing three different objects. When mice are in an unfamiliar environment, they exhibit behaviors such as curiosity, exploration, sniffing, and circling the objects. Several hours later, one of the objects is moved, and the mouse is placed back in the box. If the mouse remembers the previous positions of the three objects, it will spend more time exploring the "relocated" object. However, when researchers repeatedly tapped the cage and disturbed the mice's sleep between the two experiments, the mice spent roughly the same amount of time near the three objects in the second experiment, indicating that the mice had not formed a memory and were similarly unfamiliar with the objects.
Robert Hefkis, a biology researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, used a special "pharmacogenomics" technique to increase the concentration of cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) in excitatory cells in the hippocampus of mice when they first entered the box. Even if the mice were sleep-deprived and their sleep quality was greatly disturbed, they were still able to remember the object whose position had been changed.
Hefkis's analysis shows that the team has found that memory formation is hindered by interfering with the sleep of mice for only one day. However, on-call doctors, night shift workers, and others are often chronically sleep-deprived. Therefore, whether the method of "saving memories" by adjusting the cyclic adenosine monophosphate in the hippocampus of the brain is effective still needs further confirmation.
News Source:Yahoo! News