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."
. . .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?
See a sleep specialist. If you don't sleep well, there's probably a reason. For many overweight people, the problem is sleep apnea, caused by the airway being obstructed, which the body reacts to by waking up. A different sleeping position, a device worn over the mouth and nose to help keep the airway open, and/or losing weight can help. (I know about this from a friend who suffers from this problem, but isn't willing to do anything about it. And not coincidentally has been suffering from increasing Can't Remember Shit Syndrome.)
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
If he has sleep apnea, it can lead to a marked increase in his risk for heart attacks. With severe sleep apnea, your body senses your blood O2 saturation dropping and wakes you up in a panic thinking you're dying (seriously). That sort of 'night of 1000 deaths' leads to high cortisol levels and all sorts of other nasty things. I assume you probably already have, but urge him to at least have a sleep study done - that may show him that a simple CPAP machine can return his sleep patterns to normal. It quite literally saved my life.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Which is stupid. I myself have got sleap apnea and the first time I tried that CPAP device was the first time in years I felt actually rested in the morning. The difference in life quality is enormous - it was like I was a zombie before and now alive again. That feeling alive has helped me to pick up sports and to lose over 50 kg, the only thing I regret is not starting the therapy earlier.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
I just use a lot of alcohol. Drink a 5th of rum every night and you sleep like a baby until morning, unless you have to wake up to puke, but if you did it right you don't even wake up for that.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
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 also was diagnosed with sleep apnea... I was routinely waking up 1-4 times every night thinking I had to pee... It turns out my brain was waking up my body due to low O2 saturation, then the conscious part of my brain was saying "why am I awake? It must be because I have to pee" so I would...
My sleep study showed that I stopped breathing 262 times in the short 4 hours of sleep with the recorder... So the 'cure' was CPAP which I just knew wasn't going to work for me... I went to a different sleep clinic and they prescribed a dental appliance which looks like this:
http://www.sleepandhealth.com/sites/www.sleepandhealth.com/files/images/Article_images/TAP.jpg
It brings the lower jaw forward which helps prevent constriction of your airway when you relax during sleep. It has an adjustment screw so you can fine tune it. You start with the screw all the way relaxed to become accustomed to wearing the appliance, and then slowly over time you turn it forward until you start to sleep well. Then you do a followup sleep study so they can compare and check the adjustment.
I can travel with it, no sore throat in the morning, no whirring next to the bed, etc.
The first night I had the appliance in, with the adjustment screw all the way relaxed, my wife kept waking up in a panic to check whether I was still breathing. I was no longer snoring and because that was a sound that was so pervasive in our marriage, she had trouble sleeping without hearing my snoring...
Now after two years, I consistently sleep through the night and get a solid 7-8 hours each night. I no longer feel a need to nap in the afternoons or evenings. I can't say my memory is back to normal, though... But I put that down to my advanced age.
After telling my dad about it, he got an appliance as well. He tried CPAP when he was first diagnosed but after a month or two of trying it, he was sleeping worse because of the damn machine and hoses and mask so he gave it up. The dental appliance changed his life. He's going on 18 months with it and his health has improved, his weight has improved, and he's finding it easier to keep his blood sugar under control.. The sleep clinic that initially prescribed and sold him the CPAP machine claimed to have heard of the dental appliances but said they didn't work so CPAP was the only solution. So he came into town and went to the clinic that I went to, to get his dental appliance.
So if you can't tolerate CPAP, then consider talking to the sleep clinic about the dental appliances. Note: they're quite expensive and they're not the same as the cheap "boil and bite" ones, which don't last very long and don't allow you to adjust the offset of the lower jaw.
I found it's a good thing to scare the crap out of them with an overnight oximetry reading. Cheap data recording oximeters are dirt cheap on ebay, and a good gift/loan for someone worth caring about.
Does wonders for the die hard denialists seeing the blood oxygen saturation drop to near death levels multiple times throughout the night.
Even more hilarious is showing people a cam recording of them stopping breathing while they sleep, with all the gory choking sounds.
Usually after seeing or hearing all that, they are off to the doc to book a sleep test.