Poor Sleep – The Culprit behind Forgetfulness in Old Age?

Rebecca Lewis January 28, 2013

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In a new study published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, scientists from the University of California at Berkeley found an association between lack of sleep, memory loss and brain deterioration.

For their study, the scientists recruited 18 healthy young individuals with an average age of 20, and 15 older adults with an average age of 70 to undergo series of memory tests after a full night’ sleep. Before going to bed, participants learned and were tested with 120 sets of word pairs. While sleeping, their brain wave activity was measured through the electroencephalographic (EEG) machine.

The following day, the participants were tested again on the word pairs. But this time, they underwent fMRI brain scans.

Poor sleep = Poor memory

Through the fMRI images, the researchers saw a clear deterioration in the middle of the frontal lobe and the impairment in the slow wave activity during sleep among the older participants. They also found that their quality of sleep was 70% lower than the younger adults, and their test scores were 50% lower with that of the younger participants.

According to the researchers, the slow brain waves generated by the brain during deep, restorative sleep play a crucial role in transferring memories from the hippocampus (short-term storage) to the prefrontal cortex (long-term storage). In older adults, memories tend to be stuck in the hippocampus because the brain produces little slow wave, due to poor quality sleep. Instead of being transferred, memories in the hippocampus are overwritten by newer memories, the researchers add.

"When we are young, we have deep sleep that helps the brain store and retain new facts and information. But as we get older, the quality of our sleep deteriorates and prevents those memories from being saved by the brain at night”, says Matthew Walker, the study lead author and an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at UC Berkeley.

In their study, they found that the slow brain wave is generated in the frontal lobe. The deterioration of this particular region is linked to the inability of the brain to produce slow wave needed in processing long-term memories.

Hope for New Treatments

The discovery that the slow waves generated in the frontal lobe helps strengthen memories opened up the way towards developing new treatments for memory loss. Soon, the researchers will be conducting another study to explore the possibility of sleep-enhancing remedies, such as the use of electrical stimulation, to improve sleep among older adults.

 

Dear Readers,

Do you think there are better and safer ways to promote quality sleep among older individuals? What remedies can you suggest?

Share your comments below.

 

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Poor sleep in old age prevents the brain from storing memories