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Sleep and Memory
If you want to remember your name, getting enough sleep will make a
difference in how you recall what you know according to a recent study.
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Sleep Strengthens Your Memory
27 April 2007 - medicalnewstoday.com
Sleep not only protects memories from outside
interferences, but also helps strengthen them, according to research
that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 59th
Annual Meeting in Boston, April 28- May 5, 2007.
The study looked at memory recall with and without interference
(competing information). Forty-eight people between the ages of 18
and 30 took part in the study. All had normal, healthy sleep
routines and were not taking any medications. Participants were
divided evenly into four groups a wake group without interference, a
wake group with interference, a sleep group without interference and
a sleep group with interference. All groups were taught the same 20
pairs of words in the initial training session.
The wake groups were taught the word pairings at 9 a.m. and then
tested on them at 9 p.m. after 12 hours awake. The sleep groups were
taught the word pairs at 9 p.m. and tested on them at 9 a.m. after a
night of sleep. Just prior to testing, the interference groups were
given a second list of word pairs to remember. The first word in
each pair was the same on both lists, but the second word was
different, testing the brain's ability to handle competing
information, known as interference. The interference groups were
then tested on both lists.
The study found that people who slept after learning the information
performed best, successfully recalling more words. Those in the
sleep group without interference were able to recall 12 percent more
word pairings from the first list than the wake group without
interference. With interference, the recall rate was 44 percent
higher for the sleep group.
"This is the first study to show that sleep protects memories from
interference," said study author Jeffrey Ellenbogen, MD, with
Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA, and Fellow of the American
Academy of Neurology. "These results provide important insights into
how the sleeping brain interacts with memories: it appears to
strengthen them. Perhaps, then, sleep disorders might worsen memory
problems seen in dementia."
The University of Pennsylvania Nassau Undergraduate Research Fund
and the National Institutes of Health supported the study.
The American Academy of Neurology, an association of over 20,000
neurologists and neuroscience professionals, is dedicated to
improving patient care through education and research. A neurologist
is a doctor with specialized training in diagnosing, treating and
managing disorders of the brain and nervous system such as
Alzheimer's disease, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's
disease, and stroke. For more information about the American Academy
of Neurology, visit http://www.aan.com.
American Academy of Neurology (AAN)
1080 Montreal Ave.
St. Paul, MN 55116
United States
http://www.neurology.org |
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