Slashdot Mirror
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.
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?
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
This story about sleep (and the lack thereof) was submitted at 2:15am.
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.