 compared with younger adults (left), with consequent memory impairments.)
Aging brains show a weakening in brain waves associated with deep sleep (right) compared with younger adults (left), with consequent memory impairments.
Image: Bryce Mander
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Deterioration of a specific brain region impairs sleep quality as people age, leading to poorer memory retention, according to research published today in Nature Neuroscience.
Aging is associated with the gradual loss of brain cells, sleep disturbances and declining memory function, but how these factors are related to each other has been unclear.
Neuroscientist Bryce Mander at the University of California, Berkeley, and his colleagues recruited 33 healthy adults — 18 around the age of 20, and 15 ranging from late sixties to late seventies — all with normal mental function, and asked them to memorize a list of word pairs.
The participants were asked to recall some of the word pairs ten minutes later, then left to sleep overnight while the researchers recorded the electrical activity of their brains. The next morning, volunteers were asked to recall selected words from the list again while having their brains scanned.
In keeping with earlier studies, the older adults performed less well than the younger ones on the memory test, and showed significant reductions in the slow brain waves associated with deep sleep.
The extent of deep-sleep disruption was related to the degree of memory impairment, with those exhibiting the least slow-wave activity performing the worst. These differences were also associated with a reduction of grey matter in a part of the brain called the medial prefrontal cortex.
“We’ve known for decades that sleep is disrupted in older adults, but we didn't know why,” says Mander. “Our findings show that brain deterioration, bad memory and bad sleep are not independent, but instead are significantly interrelated.”
Memory waves
It is well established that sleep strengthens newly formed memories, and slow brain waves are thought to enhance the transfer of information from the hippocampus, a brain structure that is crucial to memory formation, to other parts of the brain for long-term storage.
Mander and colleagues' findings suggest that deterioration of the medial prefrontal cortex diminishes the slow waves that occur during deep sleep. Consequently, the older participants were less able than the younger ones to solidify their memories of the word pairs.
“This study provides valuable insight into the relationship between sleep and cognition,” says Roxanne Sterniczuk, a neurophysiologist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada. However, she urges caution because the observed anatomical differences may be indicative of early neurodegeneration, rather than simply a natural loss of volume.
“The inability to examine the participants’ brains for pathology is a major limitation,” she adds. “It would be interesting to follow the older adults over time, or add a dementia group and compare the differences.”
Last year, Sterniczuk and her colleagues presented preliminary findings showing that sleep disturbances accurately predict a subsequent diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.
“Sleep disruption is even more pronounced in Alzheimer's,” says Mander, “so a good next step will be to see if sleep disruption in these populations is associated with their memory symptoms. If so, targeting sleep may reduce some of their deficits.”
This article is reproduced with permission from the magazine Nature. The article was first published on January 27, 2013.
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11 Comments
Add CommentWith an older parent to care I find this quite interesting. The immediate conclusion to draw might be to provide the older person with a sleep medication. I am an RN and have repeatedly seen, however, that at least in a hospital setting, sleep aides can often backfire on you causing confusion and combativeness. Of course the hospital setting is not an ideal testing site because of it's lack of familiarity to the patient. One would have to do an in home study to determine if sleep aides to older person's in their normal environment would benefit their memory.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWouldn't it be great if just a little sleeping pill would help to improve their memory.
But what if i cant remember how to sign in to comment...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt would be great if a sleeping pill could improve their memory. I find my older person takes great pride in associating freedom with bad sleep habits; making statements like "I get up in the middle of the night to cook and eat a pound of bacon!"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThen I discuss the wonders of sleep and the brain; describing how sleep is truly reinforced through good sleep habits and proper environment. And further that the brain builds spindle cells and if you leave the tv on, you are destroying not just tomorrows ability to sleep.
The real problem is Learning. Its very difficult without memory. My old person simply does not comprehend the message. Its as if they do not want to; but that's just how it looks on the outside. In reality theyve forgotten how to learn.
More to your point. I was completely amazed when my father was ill that hospitals seem to ignore the effects of light and sound on patients. Beeping Machines, Constant Interruptions, No Consideration of Light coming in from a window, that has a shade, but is never shut.. How on earth is a sick person supposed to heal with all these distractions. And no wonder its not a good place to test sleep drugs. I don`t think its the drugs, I think its the environment. Flourescent lights alone, guhhh.
Good Luck!
While drifting off to sleep, allow no words to pass thru your mind. This is easier than it sounds. First, no stories are allowed, then no sentences, then strive for a blank awareness. The speech center will cede dominance to the visual center and dream like imagery will arise. Such are typically fainter images than one's dreams, but can be quite vivid. Focusing on the imagery promotes sleep by disentangling the self from its subversive 'To Do' lists and offers a certain entertainment factor as well.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA Dzongen Buddhist technique instructs students to memorize their hands in a steepled (Mr. Burns like) position. At length, this visual memory work will result in the sense of a second pair of hands, somewhat like the phantom limb phenomena, and hand imagery will become the dominant imagery while drifting off to sleep and will lead to finding your hands in your dreams with consequent lucid dreaming. This takes at least a year, but work on this can be done at otherwise unfocused moments. I haven't yet had any result as a lucid dream, but the memorization work does result in pre-sleep hand imagery, so I'm still hopeful.
Another wonderful non-drug option is Brainwave Optimization. Clinical trials have been published using this non-invasive work for primary insomnia. Trials were conducted at Wake Forest School of Medicine.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMore info and locations of practitioners here: http://brainstatetech.com/locations
anon 321:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with you that hospitals are a terrible environment to get any sleep. Any monitoring of sleep aids in that situation would be totally useless. I think stress is the great enemy of sleep and exercise is a great stress reliever for those who are able.
There are many, many more genuine, causative factors, as well as combinations thereof, than those mentioned in this article concerning mental impairment and decline. As one of those so cavalierly addressed, the biggest obstacle to better memory and better sleep is stress. If stress is eliminated, whatever other factors mentioned are a distant second. The second and very least of which is being looked at and prejudged by family and friends. Being broke and living alone with the uncertainty of life today causes more pain and stress than can be so simply measured in a study by cognitive testing. If one is sincerely interested in understanding and learning what is happening, honest communication is the best tool.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have to question the design of this experiment. Maybe someone who has read the Nature article can comment. As a minimum the test and retesting of the participants should have been done after an 8-9 hour delay during the day where no sleep is involved. This is the result that should have been compared to a similar test and retest done after a night's sleep. The difference in the two results gives what could possibly be attributed to sleep difference.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTheharrison makes a point.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStudies have shown that the brains of healthy 80-year-olds have significantly MORE dendritic connections than they had at 50 years. Required, however, is continued learning as a habit and preference. Learning can consist of any novel physical or mental pursuit.
While neuronal loss may occur, it is highly variable among individuals. Look to studies in cultural biology and neuroscience for material on aging, and aging successfully.
The famous 20th century nun studies, for instance, will give some insight into factors affecting cognitive and other decline. The science has been greatly developed since.You will benefit from access to archives in libraries of Universities with strong neurobiology programs.
Sleep experts say that most mental illness is due to little, or poor, sleep. To get the sleep you get at the coast when the wind blows in from the sea just heat salt water in an oil burner overnight. In just five nights insomnia is cured and this takes with it all symptoms of mental illness.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisConstant learning and informed research with professional, public and familial discussions are only the beginnings of any discoveries and/or enlightment on aging mental acuity or lack thereof. Must admit that salty steam is a new one for me, but that wife's tale must be ancient, not just old.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHowever genuine your intentions are, your references still hint at appeasement rather than solution. There is not one suggestion of cooperative conversation and discussion on the alleviation of the base cause of stress, and it has NOTHING to do with exercise. Without sincerity, there will be no gain in anyone's understanding.