Undisturbed night's sleep needed for good memory

[xchrom]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/undisturbed-nights-sleep-needed-for-good-memory-2325934.html

A continuous night's uninterrupted sleep may be the essential requirement for a good memory, according to a study carried out on laboratory mice. The animals failed to remember things after being repeatedly disturbed while they dozed. The research is more subtle than it first appears because the researchers did not just investigate disturbed sleep, which can cause memory loss through stress, but also the length of time the mice engaged in deep sleep, when memories are believed to be consolidated by the resting brain.

Many people who suffer from interrupted sleep, such as alcoholics and patients with sleep apnoea, caused by abnormal pauses in their breathing, often complain of poor memory. The study on mice may help to explain how sleeping brains are unable to consolidate their memories, scientists said.

It is not just sleep per se that is important for a good memory, but the length of continuous sleep, the study found. The experiments on sleeping mice "point to a specific characteristic of sleep – continuity – as being critical for memory," said Craig Heller, professor of biology at Stanford University Medical Centre in California.

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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[grasswire]

8. welcome to DU!

Anyone with a Pops avatar is a friend of mine. :-)

[Jazz Ambassador]

9. Happy to be here!

And to meet another Satchmo fan!

[SheilaT]

10. I have also read things that indicate

pre-industrial Europeans tended to stay in bed the entire night during those long winter nights.

More to the point, the pattern you are describing would be one of sleeping for a while, and then waking up naturally, lying awake for a while, then going back to sleep. Which is almost unimaginably different from the modern trend which is to take great pride in never getting enough sleep.

During my 20's I more often than not got plenty of sleep, usually 8 or 9 hours every night, and when given the opportunity I could sleep 16 hours straight. My health has always been beyond excellent. I am convinced there's a direct connection.

[bemildred]

2. I read a study earlier this year which said waking up in the middle of the night is normal.

One hardly knows whom to believe.

[barbtries]

4. i know it's normal for me.

i can remember that much.

[bemildred]

7. Me to.

If I spend 6-8 hours in bed, and some fair portion of it out cold, I figure that's good.

[HuckleB]

3. Recommended. -eom-

[lumberjack_jeff]

5. This is one of the reasons that parents forget children. n/t

[yodermon]

6. So torture thru sleep deprivation is counter productive?

who'da thunk.