Lack of sleep can affect learning

BOSTON, — U.S. scientists have determined sleep deprivation impairs memory for subsequent experiences by altering the function of the hippocampus. Sleep researchers have known sleep occurring after an experience can be critical to learning and memory but in the new study Matthew Walker and colleagues at Harvard University Medical School found sleep before an experience is also
critical for the normal functioning of memory systems.The scientists deprived people of a night’s sleep and then asked them to observe and remember a large set of picture slides for a subsequent recognition test. Follow-
ing a full night’s sleep, the subjects were queried about the slides. The researchers found sleep-deprived subjects showed decreased activity in the hippocampus — a brain region important for memory — relative to control subjects who were not sleep-deprived while viewing the pictures; sleep-deprived people also had poorer subsequent recall abilities. The relationship of activation in other
brain areas to activation in the hippocampus was also altered, suggesting sleep deprivation alters memory-encoding strategies, the researchers reported. The study appears in the March issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience.
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