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Poor Sleep Prevents Brain From Storing Memories
jjp9999 writes "Recent findings published on Jan. 27 in the journal Nature Neuroscience may inspire you to get some proper sleep. Researchers at UC Berkeley found that REM sleep plays a key role in moving short term memories from the hippocampus (where short-term memories are stored) to the prefrontal cortex (where long-term memories are stored), and that degeneration of the frontal lobe as we grow older may play a key role in forgetfulness. 'What we have discovered is a dysfunctional pathway that helps explain the relationship between brain deterioration, sleep disruption and memory loss as we get older – and with that, a potentially new treatment avenue,' said UC Berkeley sleep researcher Matthew Walker."
Some people just don't sleep well.
. . .why the last 20 years or so are such a blur. But it does offer hope that the lousy economy may be remembered as sucking less.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
So what kind of voltage, current, and signal sequence would you use for this?
So this means our brains use a stop-the-world type of generational garbage collector?
What was I talking about again?
As a student, a large part of my work involves remembering. I have found that I need 8 hours of sleep – if I sleep less than that, I'm useless all day: I have trouble concentrating and usually don't get any studying done.
Others however, seem to be off fine sleeping only 3 or 4 hours a day. Sure, they are tired, but it doesn't impact their ability to concentrate in the same way. Any biologist / neuroscientists here who can explain this?
All I read is this is good news. "a potentially new treatment avenue" ... keep on partying, woo hoo!
If I'm reading the source article correctly, it has a big typo that propagated to the slashdot post. The source article abbreviated non-rapid eye movement to REM. It is deep stage 3 (delta) non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep that is important to memory, not REM sleep.
. . . my employer has outsourced sleep.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
I like to follow these types of stories. I lost all of my memory one morning when I was 19. The cause isn't clear. I was in an underdeveloped country at the time, so the medical facilities didn't exist to determine what had happened. (It might have been a delayed effect of a car accident I was in two years earlier.) It's also probably important to note that my ability to form new memories was also severely impeded.
I wonder a little bit about what "moving" a memory means. At least in my amateur study, memories aren't complete entities (like a file, database, etc). They are mixes of memories, the awareness of what has occurred, and associations, our integration of what we already know with what we are remembering. That's part of the reason people can have such differing memories of a shared experience. Some of that is about how memories are retrieved. In my study and experience, they are retrieved by these associations we make. That's why memory tricks involve making varied associations -- to song, to a mental or physical image, etc. For people who haven't learned those tricks, an association can be as simple as "I remember we met in a bar..." then the rest of the picture is pieced together.
I wonder sometimes if my having to learn different ways of "remembering" things will allow me to maintain a higher level of memory functioning into my elder years. I have to be very aware and purposeful about what I remember. I was in college when I lost my memory, so I had to learn very quickly how to perform in school without being able to learn in the conventional sense (I could not remember the beginning of a semester by the time it ended). So I focused much more on the integration of memories into my existing awareness (aka forming associations between new experiences and prior knowledge.) I still have a very poor memory retrieval in the classic sense, but I can still learn lessons well. It has just required a much higher level of sentience with regards to how memories are stored and what I hope to gain from a memory in the long term.
What comes first, finding a teacher or becoming a student?
memories are not stored in any specific brain region. the absolute proof of this is that thousands of epileptics have had an entire hemisphere of their brain removed WITH NO LOSS OF MEMORY!
I think this is news-for-nerds not so much because it is a science article, but more so because, for some reason, all of us who work in IT keep messing up with our sleep schedules (or at least have a tendency to). So it's interesting news.
I don't even *remember* where I first heard that we need sleep to form memories, but I've known it for at least 3 decades now.... certainly long before I graduated high school.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
But for me: some light physical activity during the day(yard work or such), a hot shower and a couple of adult beverages before bedtime, and a clear conscience go a long way. If all that fails, a couple of threads like this on /. will usually put me out like a midnight cigarette.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
What was that I just read?
This story about sleep (and the lack thereof) was submitted at 2:15am.
...maybe it's that our brain deteriorates as we age and thus memories are not stored as effectively. Same thing goes for the 'celia' in our ears, we start losing them from birth, plain and simple.
$action = empty(PHP) ? backToC() : unset(PHP) ; "when the concrete cases are understood, the abstractions are readily
I'm actually only about half-joking here. When you have a newborn, you get practically no sleep for months at a time, and yet people still have multiple kids. Why? Because nobody clearly remembers those early terrible sleepless months!
.... sleep loss which then results in poor memory retention.
I was in a marriage with a man I absolutely loved with all my heart and soul and I thought he was a good guy, but he just up and quit the marriage, leaving with no real explanation as to what happened. Naturally, I slipped into deep stress and depression, I found myself lying awake every night for hours and hours only to get about 2 to 3 hours of restless sleep a night. I've been doing this for over a year now and each night I struggle to find restful sleep.
I try, but it still eludes me. Exercise to the point of exhaustion only barely helps. Sleep aids don't even phase me. Alcohol does virtually nothing, and frankly I've avoided it due to migraines that it can cause.
I believe that happiness is the best thing for sleep and a good memory. Because most happy people aren't usually depressed and less stressed out.
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
I was diagnosed with severe chronic insomnia a few years back, after having problems for several years. What affected my life most was the long time memory loss. When talking to old friends, I rarely could recall past events we shared. My solution was photography.
Now I always carry a camera with me, and use a website that publishes my images according to date. I then go back and check my past once in a while to get a refresh, and this works very well for me.
Also tried writing, but pictures seem to stick way better for me.
I'm reading a book about memory at the moment, and this is one of the thing specifically mentioned. The book was written in the 90's and discusses research going back to the 70's, so this is hardly "news" (though that fact that it might be better proven or more specific now could be, but that's not what TFS says).
I have an interest in memory mainly because I suffer quite badly from a very peculiar memory defect (I won't pretend that it's been diagnosed by - or even mentioned to - a medical professional, but it's definitely there).
I have an atrocious memory. Everyone says so. I forget things all the time, forget birthdays, forget facts I was told years ago about whatever gossip was being talked about at the time, etc.
Funny, though, that I can remember pi to 32 decimal places without struggling, and only learned it because I was writing a program to calculate it by a series of diminishing fractions back when I was about 10, and have never needed to know it in any detail (certainly not to 32 places!) since. I can remember my 4th birthday. I can recite conversations that I've had months ago. I can remember all sorts of weird stuff and the EXACT same people who berate me for having a terrible memory often say "How the hell do you remember that? I didn't even remember the thing taking place and I was there!"
My problem is not memory. It's automatic memory acquisition and recall. Just being exposed to a fact won't make me remember it unless I find it interesting or I force myself to remember it (I know the number plate of a car my ex-father-in-law hired nearly 10 years ago for a family trip because we were booking into a hotel and I had to run outside, commit it to memory, and then recite it a minute later - it's STILL there). Without doing this deliberately I won't commit it to memory, and I can't be relied upon to recall it unless prompted.
And similarly, just knowing that at 3:00pm I have an urgent appointment won't make my brain trigger the recall. Even if I look at a clock. Even if I deliberately look at my schedule. Even if I then check mentally that I have nothing on that day so I can sign up for something else. It still just does not pop into my brain. But if at any point you ask me "What time was that appointment with X you had?" I would be able to tell you the time months in the future, and what we were supposed to discuss, in extraordinary detail.
My memory is PERFECT. It does exactly what I ask it to. But when it's not being used, it goes to sleep. It misses facts that it might be useful for me to remember unless I wake it up. And it will not "remind" me of anything, ever - it will always only do it after the event.
I function in society quite normally, but it's a real struggle and people don't see this, because of the ambiguity of my brain. I might not remember to come to your birthday party that I've been planning for months. But I will remember that crucial fact that you asked me to remember so long as YOU prompt me to give it to you at the required time.
I have tried every single possible system known to man of making myself be "reminded" of things in time. None of them work. Have my phone calendar beep? I'll forget to put the appointment in, I'll forget that I put my phone to silent, I'll cancel the beep when it does happen and then forget to check what it was, I'll read the calendar and know where I'm supposed to be in 5 minutes and then in 10 minutes find myself still sitting there having been distracted by something. You name it, the system won't work for me.
For a while I had systems such as "everything on the bottom step has to go upstairs next time I go there", because I was so sick and tired of having to keep going up and downstairs and getting there and an hour later realising I was supposed to be doing X (the thing I came downstairs for).
I still forgot to put things on the pile, or that the pile was supposed to be there (especially if I'd emptied it recently, the pile would be "forgotten" about until the next ti
But here's today's intriguing question: when are researchers going to notice the link between long-term sleep deprivation and (at least some forms of) Alzheimer’s Disease? I think that permanent damage can result from constant, chronic sleep deprivation.
Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.
Huh? Old people don't generally sleep more. They generally go to bed earlier - but they also generally wake up earlier, so end up sleeping the same amount of time or less - sleep apnea, insomnia, and other reasons for having trouble going into deep sleep are more common for the elderly.
As you get older, committing things to memory takes longer as you have more things there to remember? I'm just guessing.
And to be honest, all the "old people" I know, get less sleep in their retirement than they ever have in their entire life (and thus tend to take early-morning walks, be up with the crows, listening to the radio late at night, etc.).
I tell my students over and over every semester that a good night's sleep is just as important as studying. Not that they listen, but I still tell them.
I've always seen sleep as performing the same function as defragging a drive.
Sure, they say that CPAP is highly effective for those who follow through with the treatment, but that's likely true simply because only those who CPAP helps will stick with it. Those who it doesn't help are going to say "to hell with this" after a few weeks.
While it is obviously a hindrance to short term memory when you are high, the sound sleep it provides promotes long term memory. My anecdotal experience supports this.
Compared to EVERY SINGLE OTC SLEEP DRUG, cannabis has a much higher LD-50 and is thus FAR SAFER. Of course our corrupted federal government can't see a medical purpose? Instead, they call me a criminal for growing and smoking my own medicine. This conflict causes me great depression - if our system is that corrupt and EVIL, why should I participate in it? My $26k federal tax bill just reminds me that every success I have in my personal life just feeds a machine that should be rebuilt instead of fed. Fuck it, why bother going for a promotion - it only means more money goes to this federal monster?
One usually has multiple kids because the first kid is usually the most well behaved and quiet kid one ever has. And probably sometimes you have a second (or another) child if it's therapeutic for the mother.
wait, it is not about the computer memory, is it? Darn it.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
"Porn sleep prevents brain from storing memories" - for a minute there I thought I'd have to stop looking at sleep porn. Whew...
Yet another reason (other than killing the occasional patient) that it makes no sense for medical residents to have a sleep free schedule. They're supposed to be learning during their residency. But no matter how much scientific studies, experience or common sense shows sleepless-in-the-hospital is a bad idea, the medical profession will insist this hazing ritual is essential. So much for "scientific medicine" as their approach to training is as scientific as red ocher and rattles. It probably also doesn't hurt that all those sleepless residents mean attending physicians don't have to work so many night shifts.
my wife tells me its because I'm a man and to stop blaming this on sleep disorder. hehe lol
My parents are both in their eighties, and I don't think they sleep any more now than when I was a kid. I'm sleeping more than I used to, but that's deliberate. I needed no scientific study to determine that my mind's not as sharp when I don't get enough sleep. These days I go to bed early, the alarm clock seldom goes off.
If your clock wakes you up, you're not at your best. I've also found that I'm almost never irritable and usually in a really good mood. Ever see a toddler who needs his nap? Adults are just like the toddlers.
I'm an insomniac and my short term memory gets horrible when I'm in a bad stretch of sleep problems.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Long and short term memories are very different beasts, I think that when you get old you're likely to keep almost all your long term memory but the short term ability gets poor or very poor. So in your daytime, you would have a lot less things to remember actually.
When old, you probably get back to much "ritual" behavior too (something very natural in the animal rein), i.e. waking up at a fixed time, doing similar errands in the morning, preparing soup at 7 PM (whatever your granny routine is).
Then, all your activity slows down. You spend (and consume) less energy, eat quite less I think, and probably have less need for sleep due to that slower functioning body. That's what I think to know about old age, perhaps there are nice books that deal with this topic. Lol, I hope I'll be alive long enough to be old and to suffer moderate enough pains.
Sorry, this isn't news. Having studied some biopsychology in the mid 1990s this is a well known phenomenon.
During various stages of sleep, such as REM and other cycles, which can technically only be achieved by having "good" sleep, the brain does it's "housekeeping", such as memory consolidation from short term to longer term memory.
Physiological/pharmacological issues aside, with proper SLEEP this occurs. Explains why cramming all night for exams without sleep doesn't always work, and forgetting the material after the exam or a short nap.
Sleep is not just for physical rest. think of it as a defrag for your brain. without sufficient sleep you will underperform and expose yourself to a host of physiological ailments.
I can counter your anecdotal evidence with both more anecdotal evidence and a link from a legitimate source. A few people I know smoked pot every day and they never did dream and their memory was so poor. It was only when they went into treatment for their addiction did they quit. Once they did they were flooded with dreams. This was years before the article that was posted on Psychology Today, which was on June 22, 2009. It only confirms my anecdotal evidence.
However, I do agree about the laws which treats users and dealers of any drug as a federal criminal. We need to treat anyone that is somehow involved in illegal drugs (illegally distributed prescription drugs included) to receive treatment and rehabilitation so they can either become or get back to being productive citizens.
I believe this is an evolutionary feature, not a bug. Otherwise parents would never have a second child.
This mechanism explains how we forget the horrors of the first 6-8 weeks post-delivery and the hell that is sleep in 1.5 hour increments.
From ages 14-25 I consistently slept anywhere from 4-7 hours a night, the average being about 6 hours. I struggled through high school and university. Towards the end of my University tenure, I finally put serious stock in the old notion that sleep was essential to mental function. After a couple weeks of always getting at least 8hrs/night, I found my memory capabilities (which had always sucked) were vastly improved. So was my ability to focus my full attention. It's now been about 4 years since I started sleeping properly and it's made a big difference. Further, sleep deprivation will cause weight gain has something to do with hormones. My short sleeps wasn't a disorder, I think. Rather, it was lack of satisfaction with the day, I wanted to feel like I lived more, so I'd stay up late reading, programming, playing video games, talking with friends, etc.
Do you sleep more when you are bored? That is what I do. Nothing like having projects to work on to have me up early. Then I catch up a bit on sleep when things slow down.
I come here for the love
My job has been making it hard for me to rest for the past 3 years. I feel like a shell of what I could do when I started it. I'm quitting soon
"REM sleep plays a key role in moving short term memories from the hippocampus "
This whole article is about deep sleep improving short term memories. It had nothing to do with rapid eye movement sleep, the so-called fifth stage of sleep.
I will allow for partial blame to be placed on the article's author, for writing the statement "Healthy adults typically spend one-quarter of the night in deep, non-rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep." IMHO, 'non-rapid-eye-movement' should never be acronymized into 'REM.' I searched "sleeping stages" and came across an artcile which used the acronym NREM to refer to all the other stages. Although I've never HEARD any PEOPLE use the term, I am not involved with sleep studies, sleep psychology, etc etc. I sincerely believe that those with common sense will understand a term like NREM, although it may not be common usage.
My pet peeve: People that use acronyms when there are others that potentially may not know what the acronym means, and I'm not just talking about this article - I'm talking about real life situations. Last meeting I had to ask what "P&L" means. I'm not an accountant, and I don't read financial statements all day. Just say the words "profit and loss"one time and you won't be leaving the engineer scratching his head. Oh yes, if by P&L you actually mean sales receipts or revenue, then yes by all means, continue to say P&L.
Why would you abbreviate something that you are only using once in an article? If you are going to write "rapid eye movement" maybe fiften more times, it could be justified, but if there are only a few instances, just TYPE IT OUT for baby jesus christ's sake.
No trees were killed to send this message, but a great number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.
...because sometimes I see things that I don't want to remember!
the link is broken :-(
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
sleep researcher: Best job title ever!
Clinic Depression will cause significant problems with your sleep cycle. It goes the other way too. We can deliberately induce clinical depression in folks by screwing up their sleep cycle. I don't know if they are still doing it, but back in the day antidepressant drugs were tested by messing up subjects' sleep cycle.
You need to see a doctor! A psychiatrist! A good one!
Antidepressant drugs can help you, but they are just a crutch. A temporary fix. You need to talk it all out, and work through your problems. (Like why you are dependent on other people for your happiness... You can be happy with someone else, but if you are dependent on them for happiness that leads down a dark path...)
Over the counter sleep aids might help you. But really, DON'T TAKE THEM without a doctor's supervision. Sleep drugs (or alcohol) mix horribly and fatally with depression. (I barely survived learning that one the hard way some years back.)
You might try hypno-therapy. I've found https://www.hypnobabies.com/store/product/66-peaceful-sleep-now-for-all-mp3 to be really helpful! Unlike drugs, you can come out of hypno-therapy quite quickly in an emergency.
It seems Berkeley have updated their timestamp for that article:
You tried going to http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2013/01/27/sleep-memory/, and it doesn't exist. All is not lost! You can search for what you're looking for.
The new link http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2013/01/28/sleep-memory/ points to yesterdays date rather than Sundays.
Slashdot editors, please update the summary.
Also, the study is about memory in old age in particular.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
I slept like a baby last night. Wet the bed three times.
I sleep about 3 hours a night and take 2-3 five-minute cat naps during the day. I've been sleeping like this for the better part of 40 years. When I lay down to sleep, I fall asleep almost instantaneously and don't wake up until my alarm goes off (Usually wake up just before). I'll usually have 1 night a week where I feel tired enough to get 4.5 hours in. I try to keep my sleep to multiples of 90-min (based in something I read on rem cycles). I'm 58 and have what I believe is respectable recall for someone my age. Don't know about the study subjects, but I think the quality of the sleep is more important than the amount.
I used to drive trucks all over the US. I drove ILLEGALLY, ignoring the DOT rules because I had heard about how important it was to get a good, consistent night sleep. The way the government has the rules set up, you are driving and sleeping all around the clock, that is, unless you are smart and drive illegally. This amounted to driving until my normal bed time - 9:00 PM, not until I had driven the 11 hours I was supposed to drive and then hit the sack. The next day I would drive maybe 15 or 16 hours until bed time, making up the hours missed the day before. Long driving hours are no problem for people who are used to driving. I did this for 25 years and never got a single citation for being out or over hours. It is just a matter of being sure your log is rewritten to be up to date.
I assure you that whenever you see a truck on it side on the highway or in a ditch or has run out into the wood or brush, you are looking at a driver who was driving by the rules and went to sleep.
Poor Sleep Prevents Brain From Storing MemoriesPoor Sleep Prevents Brain From Storing Memories
"Calling Doctor Obvious. Doctor Obvious, please come to the front desk! You have an unnecessary message! Doctor Obvious! You have a message from an "N. S. Sherlock!"
THINK! It's patriotic