The importance of sleep has long been overlooked, as discrepancies in this cycle can influence everyday health/performance as well as being a risk factor for a plethora of developmental and cognitive disorders. However, through diligent research the significance and positive consequences that a consistently adequate amount of sleep could lead to has finally started to branch out from the field of neuroscience and into the general public. A study done at the University of Tsukuba examines how vital an undisrupted sleep cycle is for hippocampal regulation and memory formation.
Through a technique called ‘immediate early gene imaging’, the researchers were able to look at neural clusters in an entire rat hippocampus and visualize their activity during memory formation. This allowed them to scope out specific groups of neurons that were responsible for memory production. Taking their study a step further, the scientists at the University of Tsukuba decided to measure the effects of sleep on the aforementioned neuron clusters and consequently, hippocampal dependent memory. In the second half of the experiment, hippocampal activity of fear conditioned rats was recorded when they were asleep. Results showed that recollection of the fear inducing stimulus in rats that were able to sleep was much stronger and more prevalent than in the group that received little to no sleep. It was concluded that these neurons require sleep during periods of memory formation in order to stabilize those physical engrams that form. These findings are of great importance as they suggest more research on sleep and memory consolidation should be done as it could potentially lead to development of treatment options for those with memory disorders.
Dr. Anna Fishbein, Dr Phyllis Zee, and colleagues also examine the impacts of poor sleep health and the several disorders they can contribute to in their paper “Circadian disruption and human health”. Amongst the many illnesses they outline and discuss, a big group is neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and Huntington’s disease. Disruptions in the sleep wake cycle, more specifically the circadian cycle, is considered to be a huge risk factor for disorders like these. Extensive research as presented in this paper, shows that loss or degeneration of neurons in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) and environmental factors like reduced exposure to light can have severe effects on the amplitude and alignment of a person’s circadian rhythm, especially in those with Alzheimer’s or dementia. The article points out a symptom of circadian disruption is such a patient could be an cognitive decline and memory impairment as this misalignment could affect the different brain regions the SCN is connected to, such as the hippocampus.
With regards to these memory disorders, findings like from the papers described above emphasize the importance of sleep in human health and the consequences that irregular and poor sleep can lead to . Both articles argue for the idea that more research should be done on the effect of sleep on the pathology of memory related illnesses as it is clear the hippocampus is not a brain region immune to the effects inadequate sleep can have.
Sources:
Fishbein, A. B., Knutson, K. L., & Zee, P. C. (2021). Circadian disruption and human health. Journal of Clinical Investigation, 131(19). https://doi.org/10.1172/jci148286
University of Tsukuba. (2022, November 29). For memory formation, organization matters. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 1, 2023 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/11/221129112857.htm
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