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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?
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?
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'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.
Perhaps when the brain is flawed, then it stores the memories in the unflawed areas? Kind of like how you can block the use of bad sectors on a harddrive; they would be used if they worked correctly, but since they don't, they can be prevented from use and the unflawed sectors will be used instead.
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.
Nah, sleep is closer to being a reboot or "fsync()" call. Your working memory (RAM) is doing things all day and if you're interrupted or disturbed, you can lose it. Sleep just syncs your data to more long-term storage if it's necessary, and discards all those temporary files you no longer need.
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...
my wife tells me its because I'm a man and to stop blaming this on sleep disorder. hehe lol
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.
Perhaps. But it sure screws with your short term memory. Possibly by messing up your ability to focus. You might make detailed observations of a bug crawling across the conference room table during a meeting. But it was the meeting you were supposed to pay attention to. And now you want to commit that to long term storage?
This is why stoners are so much fun to screw with. Distract them with something and hilarity ensues.
Have gnu, will travel.
Yeah. But timothy forgot.
Have gnu, will travel.
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
It's called an analogy, genius. How much of your brain did you have removed?
And it's certainly an analogy that would connect w/ the /. crowd. The AC's insightful analysis didn't help (yeah, big surprise).
Disproof of the AC's hypothesis. Do a gedankenspiel comparing the AC's brain and a disk drive.
Throw a feather at it, it won't break.
Hit it w/ a sledgehammer, it will break.
sr
"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy"
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
"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.
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.
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