Our memory skills decline as we age; it’s an inevitable
result of growing older. But a recent study suggests that aging adults' failure to recall a thought or two, may be caused by the
one place we think we should find rest: sleep.
Clearly, a good night's sleep will never be overrated. The study, completed by University of
California, Berkeley scientists found that it all comes down to the quality of
sleep we have as we get older, not the quantity.
"When
we are young, we have deep sleep that helps the brain store and retain new
facts and information," Matthew Walker said in a statement. "But as
we get older, the quality of our sleep deteriorates and prevents those memories
from being saved by the brain at night."
During the time spent in deep sleep, the brain
generates slow brain waves that carry our memories of the day from the
hippocampus, where memories are stored temporarily, to the prefrontal cortex
for long-term storage. As we get age, this type of sleep gets harder to come
by, as older adults have a harder time falling and staying asleep than they did when they were younger. This lack of deep
sleep causes "medial prefrontal cortex gray-matter atrophy" and compromised pathways between
the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex, leaving memories "stuck"
in the short-term memory part of the brain, only to be rewritten by new ones.
It’s important to make sure you get
your beauty rest, and if you are having trouble fading off to dreamland then be
sure to speak with your family doctor. Raise your concerns - your memory may thank you for it later.
How many hours of sleep did you get last night?
