Link Between Sleep Disturbances and Memory Problems

Disturbed sleep affects memory consolidation and enhancement, reveals study.

It is becoming widely accepted that sleep is crucial for cementing long-term memory, so in this new study, the researchers went a step further to investigate whether these beneficial effects only arise after some minimum amount of continuous sleep.

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The authors, led by Ina Djonlagic at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, found that patients with sleep apnea, which leads to sleep disturbances, showed significantly lower overnight improvement and plateau performance for a newly learned motor task than seen for the control group.

Both groups had comparable initial learning performance during the training phase, suggesting that the overnight sleep disturbance was likely related to the subsequent poorer performance.

"Optimal overnight memory consolidation in humans requires a certain amount of sleep continuity independent of the total amount of sleep," the authors said.

Quiz on Sleep Disorder
The comfort of modern life comes at the cost of restful sleep! "Laugh and the world laughs with you, snore and you sleep alone-Anthony Burgess" Scientifically it is proven that a good night's sleep is imperative for maintaining a balance between the physical, emotional and behavioral well-being of a person.

The study has been published in the open access journal PLoS ONE.

Source-ANI

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