Why Sleepyheads Forget

Neuroscientists at the University of Pennsylvania have found one way that lack of sleep can alter the process of learning. It has been known for some time now that lack of sleep can affect episodic memory retention, but this study has found one specific cause of this detrimental effect of sleep deprivation – an increase in enzyme that breaks apart cAMP in the hippocampus. This enzyme is a phosphodiesterase called PDE4A5, and it was found to be elevated up to 40% in sleep deprived mice.

To verify their hypothesis that this increased enzyme production caused the lack of memory retention in sleep deprivation, the scientists administered a drug called rolipram to slow phospodiesterase production in the mice’s hippocampus. According to their results, sleep deprived mice that were given rolipram were capable of remembering as well as mice that were allowed to rest normally. The repercussions of this study and those like it could be helpful to college students who wish to have all-night study sessions and still retain the information for the test on the next day and possibly even the final, or this could usher in new memory drugs that help the brain process information better and retain knowledge longer.

Source:
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/1021/1

Stephen Infanger
VTPP 434-502