Lose Sleep, Fail To Form Memory 85
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.'''
College (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.
Re: (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.
Re: (Score:1)
Most likely no. From what I understand, drunk sleep is bad sleep, neurologically speaking.
Re:College (Score:4, Funny)
I don't remember reading anything like that.
Re:College (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
Of course it is, but what's the point of being in a position of authority if you can't abuse those below you. Internships are intentional torture.
Re: (Score:2)
My son is 3 months old, and I walk around in a dazed stupor. It's a miracle that I am functional most of the time. Fortunately, my job has been greatly understanding, so that's been helpful.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
It's just a stupid hazing ritual designed to select for a certain sort of /character/ rather than optimal ability. It is, frankly, surprising that medicine manages to help so many people - but then most doctors do routine work which requires little thought, and their abilities are vastly overestimated by the general public.
All the quickest-thinking academics I've known get quite a lot of sleep. This includes the medical researchers who actually discover the stuff that the average quack has to simply follow
Re: (Score:2)
Can you say malfeasance? It's a massive liability that I'm surprised they're willing to take on.
Re: (Score:2)
Can you say malfeasance? It's a massive liability that I'm surprised they're willing to take on.
The problem is that it is hard to prove that the hospital policy was the cause of anything that went wrong.
There is no reason that hours worked shouldn't be regulated in medicine the way it is regulated in professional driving or piloting. We don't let people fly planes for 80 hours per week, so why the heck would we let people do heart surgery for 80 hours per week?
Re: (Score:2)
Why not? Maybe because it's been proven by peer-reviewed clinical studies that sleep deprivation impairs people at least as much as alcohol does.
Re: (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.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
How did you acquire this arcane knowledge that was not until this study known?
Was it all of the previous studies that linked sleep and memory without knowing the synapse-level effects of sleep deprivation?
Were you reporting your own personal experience as if it reflected the rest of the population?
Did you simply guess right?
Or did you somehow intuitively guess the results of a study that had not yet been performed?
I'm sure there are no more options, unless you count "vainly trumpeting a personal validation
Re: (Score:1)
I'll try to keep this in mind. (Score:2)
But 12 hours of sleep over the last 3 nights isn't going to help.
Everyone knows why we need sleep. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Probably because they are a company that wasn't formed yesterday. Maintenance of History, old products.
Re: (Score:1)
Clearly they spent all night setting up ClearCase, then the next morning they remembered they needed to install a code repository.
Re: (Score:3)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
So getting less sleep I can become more popular? Because, seriously, from my interactions in this world it seems that intelligent and helpful thoughts are actively discouraged. Maybe it's better to be dumb and happy.
If your goal is popularity, then go ahead and pander. If your goal is the betterment of yourself then find friends that don't discourage your growth and value the quality over quantity.
So, are their "best laid plans" ... (Score:2)
First Post! Yes! (Score:1)
At least it would have been if I had gotten enough sleep and remembered to post earlier.
Memory, Sleep and Old Age (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I would give feedback, I'd rather comment as that is a very insightful comment.
Take your thought and expand it over decades. The memory process doesn't complete without sufficient sleep. What else doesn't? What else degrades? Are the effects of less sleep cumulative (it is with memories, having the body of forgotten memories increasing, I wonder if memory degradation is also occurring at a higher rate)? Is less sleep a factor in dementia, does it contribute to Alzheimer's disease?
For the record I get a
no surprise (Score:5, 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?
Re: (Score:1)
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?
I don't think that matters much - the interesting point is something different: They observed brain cells grow. After they trained the mice in a specific manner. This sounds like there is an observable link between a certain kind of information and how it is wired into the brain.
Re: (Score:3)
Don't you remember? It was right there in the article. ;)
Re: (Score:2)
Any new parent could tell you that. (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.
Re:Any new parent could tell you that. (Score:5, 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. :-)
Re: (Score:1)
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),
Re: (Score:3)
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.
Re: (Score:1)
My daughter didn't sleep through the night until she was four. Walking in circles, jiggling gently... I got to the point where I could literally do it in my sleep. Otherwise I think I would have died. But at least she didn't bite!
One time we tried to let her "cry it out", which everyone kept telling us to do. But the neighbors started complaining after six hours of continuous all-out
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I think that furry little kid you adopted was a honey badger.
Re: (Score:1)
I hardly ever comment here, but please just let me say - from one human being to another - a big THANK YOU! I have the highest respect for Good People who take in children through adoption and raise them.
Don't know what country you're in/from, but the world needs more people like you.
Re: (Score:2)
You were probably doing things instinctively and reflexively, along with potentially being affected by stress. After you got comfortable with a routine, you did things automatically.
None of these explanations has to do with sleep deprivation, but they likewise do not trigger the "record memories" action.
Oh look, more poop to clean up. Change another diaper, attempt to insert food into mouth, rejected again. Should I remember this for later? No need.
Replaying what happened during the day? (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.
Re: (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.
It's hard to make your claim unless you remember all of your dreams.
Re: (Score:3)
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.
Re:So true! (Score:4, Funny)
That explains a lot of code I've read over the years.....
Re: (Score:2)
These aren't "histological details". Histology is done on dead tissue, whereas these researchers are imaging neurons in living animals and are seeing cells sprout new connections when animals learn. This was suspected, but it's quite another thing to see it happening before your eyes. The whole point of science is to test things you suspect; I don't understand your problem with this notion.
It's quite possible and very productive to study "complex mind processes" using in vivo imaging and elecrophysiology
Link to original paper (Score:2)
I lost most of my 20s. (Score:2)
Working 2-3 full time jobs, going to school, etc. I really have almost no recollection of anything in my 20s. I have the paystubs, etc to tell me what I was doing, but actual memories? Nope. Three to four hours of sleep a night. It sucks.
Re: (Score:2)
Rotating Shift Work (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like you remember the details, though...
Re: (Score:1)
Marcel Proust (Score:1)
Time to put exp to use (Score:1)
reactivation is key not sleep (Score:1)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/re... [sciencedaily.com]
At the end of the article: "Our data suggest that neuronal reactivation during sleep is quite important for growing specific connections within the motor cortex," Dr. Gan adds.
That suggests that the sleep deprived mice might have created stronger connections if they had a second session on the treadmill while the others were sleeping. As I understand it the study provides physical evidence that current theories about how memories form are not false. Those theories include re