Young women with acute sleep loss face a high working memory load, finds a team of sleep scientists from Uppsala University.
In the current study from the Department of Neuroscience at Uppsala University, 24 young adults performed a working memory task in the morning following either a full night of sleep or a night of wakefulness. Half of the participants were females, and half were males.
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‘Acute sleep loss was found to impact working memory differently in men and women. Working memory is important for keeping things in mind for briefer periods of time.
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The set-up of the working memory task was to learn and remember 8-digit sequences. Contrary to expectations, males' working memory performance remained unaffected by sleep loss. In contrast, females remembered fewer digits after sleep loss than after a night of sleep. Importantly, even though their performance was reduced, females were unaware of the drop in working performance when sleep-deprived. A lack of awareness of impaired mental performance could increase the risk of accidents and mistakes, which can be dangerous in many private and occupational situations, both for the sleep-deprived person as well as for others.
"However, it must be kept in mind that we have not tested whether the observed sex-dependent effects of sleep loss on working memory during morning hours would also occur at other time points of the day. In addition, while our data suggest that sleep loss impairs working memory in a sex-dependent manner, this does not mean that the sex-differences we observed can be generalised to other mental or physical measures of how we are affected by sleep loss," says Frida Rångtell, PhD student at the Department of Neuroscience and lead author of the study.
Source: Eurekalert
Source: Eurekalert
Quiz on Memory Loss
"Without memory, there is no culture. Without memory, there would be no civilization, no society, no future." - Elie Wiesel Whether it is a short term memory loss just as Dory in 'Finding Nemo' had or a more permanent one because of neurodegenerative diseases, it can adversely affect one's quality of life. Take this quiz to know more about interesting facts on memory loss
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 Epworth Sleepiness ScaleMeasure your daytime sleepiness using this simple interactive tool, based on Epworth Sleepiness disorder Scale. Excessive Daytime Sleepiness is a type of hypersomnia characterized by persistent sleepiness and lack of energy. | Advertisement
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