Losing half a night's sleep affects formation of memories
Jul-16-2015

A full night of sleep allows the brain to form memories better and deal with stress more efficiently when compared with only half a night of sleep, according to a new study.

While the study found that half a night of sleep was enough for the brain to form memories, stressful situations following a partial night of sleep revealed an impairment not found in those who sleep a full night.

In the study, researchers taught 15 participants the locations of objects and a finger tapping sequence in the evening. The participants were then given the option to sleep for either 4 hours, a short sleep condition, or 8 hours, a full sleep condition.

The researchers found that after waking up both groups recalled what they'd been taught. After being put through a stressful situation, both groups were still able to reproduce the finger tapping sequence. The short sleep group, however, had trouble recalling the locations of objects after experiencing stress while the full sleep group's performance was unchanged.

"Even though losing half a night of sleep may not impair memory functions under baseline conditions, the addition of acute cognitive stress may be enough to lead to significant impairments, which can possibly be detrimental in real-world scenarios," said Jonathan Cedernaes, a researcher in the Department of Neuroscience at Uppsala University, in a press release. "An important next step will be to investigate how chronic sleep loss and or more chronic stress may interact to impair the ability to retrieve memories that are consolidated during sleep."

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