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Lose Sleep, Fail To Form Memory

Posted by Soulskill on from the expect-dupes-if-i-miss-my-nap dept.

Rambo Tribble writes: 'A research team of Chinese and American scientists claim to have witnessed the mechanism by which sleep contributes to the formation of memories. Using advanced microscopy, the researchers witnessed synapses being formed in the brain of sleeping mice recently exposed to a learning task (abstract). They compared this to similarly tasked mice, that were subsequently sleep-deprived. The sleeping mice showed a marked increase in the formation of new synapses. As one researcher explained, "We thought sleep helped, but it could have been other causes, and we show it really helps to make connections and that in sleep the brain is not quiet, it is replaying what happened during the day and it seems quite important for making the connections.'''

18 of 85 comments (clear)

  1. College by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    This study proves what I've been saying all along: Sleep is key. A lot of my buddies in college find it strange that I choose to sleep instead of cramming all night, and then are perplexed when I would get higher grades.

    1. Re:College by AnontheDestroyer · · Score: 3, Funny

      Yeah, does this mean when I passed out drunk it actually WAS better than cramming all night?

      I'm going to take this as proof that my 18 and 19 y/o self had it all figured out.

    2. Re:College by AnontheDestroyer · · Score: 4, Funny

      I don't remember reading anything like that.

    3. Re:College by Thud457 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I always thought 36-hour shifts in medical internship was stupidly counter-productive.

      --

      the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

    4. Re:College by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      My psychology professor explained that alcohol affects memory encoding. So it's not that your drunk brain failed to record memories of the previous night, but rather that your sober brain cannot decode the memories stored by the drunk brain.

      His suggestion, therefore, was that if you study for a test while drunk, you should also be drunk when you write the test.

  2. I'll try to keep this in mind. by AnontheDestroyer · · Score: 2

    But 12 hours of sleep over the last 3 nights isn't going to help.

  3. Everyone knows why we need sleep. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 4, Interesting

    All the transactions of a session is all kept in local cache and volatile memory. Finally it has to shut all external connections off, prune, collate, compile, squash and transcribe the local cache into more permanent record. Wait, am I describing the brain? Or our wonderful IT shutting off our git repo and clearcase server everyday between 3 AM and 8 AM?

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    1. Re:Everyone knows why we need sleep. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 2

      Why would you need both GIT and ClearCase?!

      Because we are lucky. Some of the teams need CVS too. Acquisitions are fast. Integrations are slow.

      --
      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  4. no surprise by lagomorpha2 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How were the mice sleep deprived?

    Stress has been linked to poor memory for decades. Was it that stress has caused poor sleep quality and poor memory, or is it that sleep deprivation stressed the mice which caused poor memory, or both?

    1. Re:no surprise by alostpacket · · Score: 2

      Don't you remember? It was right there in the article. ;)

      --
      PocketPermissions Android Permission Guide
  5. Any new parent could tell you that. by Rodness · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's amazing how little sleep you can get and not die.

    And for about a month after both of my kids were born, I really don't remember much at all.

    1. Re:Any new parent could tell you that. by Charliemopps · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It's amazing how little sleep you can get and not die.

      And for about a month after both of my kids were born, I really don't remember much at all.

      Same here. We adopted my son at the age of 2. I don't remember about the first 6 months other than that he was VERY upset and trying to kill us. I still have scars from the bite marks. He wouldn't sleep unless we held him and walked in circles... all night. As soon as we stopped he would wake up and bite. I always thought it was PTSD blocking it out but maybe not. :-)

    2. Re:Any new parent could tell you that. by Charliemopps · · Score: 2

      I'm a foster parent, our current we got around 11 months, and holy cow that girl could SCREAM and yell all night... 3 years later she still has sleep issues but much more manageable instead of her psychologist termed PTSD from what she saw her first 10 months of life screaming uncontrollably for hours on end. I'm convinced her poor memory is from her not willing to go to sleep till 3-4 hours after bedtime...

      Sadly I remember those nights too well, but then again, as she got older we had another kid (or own), so must have passed enough in memory...

      I remember it said that being an adoptive parent takes a special kind of person, which luckily I am. We're very blessed. But adopting pales in comparison to fostering. My hats off to you sir.

    3. Re:Any new parent could tell you that. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      I think that furry little kid you adopted was a honey badger.

  6. Replaying what happened during the day? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Not in my dreams. I did not discover a huge new type of shark yesterday nor did I end up in Brazil selling a guy a bunch of old US yellowpages for $50.

    1. Re:Replaying what happened during the day? by shadowrat · · Score: 2

      Not in my dreams. I did not discover a huge new type of shark yesterday nor did I end up in Brazil selling a guy a bunch of old US yellowpages for $50.

      Well you probably don't remember your brain replaying what you remember. It's already there. You remember your brain running unit tests designed to see if the connections laid out from remembering the days events are actually going to work in a variety of real world usage scenarios.

  7. Re:So true! by canadiannomad · · Score: 3, Funny

    That explains a lot of code I've read over the years.....

    --
    Hmm, the humour and sarcasm seem to have been be lost on you.
  8. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 2

    Comment removed based on user account deletion