HEALTH: Sleep Lets Brain File Memories

[Guest guest]

AHA!! So, THIS is why those of us with fibro and insomnia of all ages

have CRSD (Can't Remember S**T Disease)!!! LOL!

 

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Sleep Lets Brain File Memories

 

To sleep, perchance to file? Findings published online this week by the

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences further support the

theory that the brain organizes and stows memories formed during the day

while the rest of the body is catching zzz's.

 

Gyorgy Buzsaki of Rutgers University and his colleagues analyzed the

brain waves of sleeping rats and mice. Specifically, they examined the

electrical activity emanating from the somatosensory neocortex (an area

that processes sensory information) and the hippocampus, which is a

center for learning and memory. The scientists found that oscillations

in brain waves from the two regions appear to be intertwined. So-called

sleep spindles (bursts of activity from the neocortex) were followed

tens of milliseconds later by beats in the hippocampus known as ripples.

The team posits that this interplay between the two brain regions is a

key step in memory consolidation.

 

A second study, also published online this week by the Proceedings of

the National Academy of Sciences, links age-associated memory decline to

high glucose levels. Previous research had shown that individuals with

diabetes suffer from increased memory problems. In the new work, Antonio

Convit of New York University School of Medicine and his collaborators

studied 30 people whose average age was 69 to investigate whether sugar

levels, which tend to increase with age, affect memory in healthy people

as well. The scientists administered recall tests, brain scans and

glucose tolerance tests, which measure how quickly sugar is absorbed

from the blood by the body's tissues. Subjects with the poorest memory

recollection, the team discovered, also displayed the poorest glucose

tolerance. In addition, their brain scans showed more hippocampus

shrinkage than those of subjects better able to absorb blood sugar.

 

" Our study suggests that this impairment may contribute to the memory

deficits that occur as people age, " Convit says. " And it raises the

intriguing possibility that improving glucose tolerance could reverse

some age-associated problems in cognition. " Exercise and weight control

can help keep glucose levels in check, so there may be one more reason

to go to the gym.

 

--Sarah Graham

 

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