This Sleep Pattern Accelerates Memory Loss – Possible Link to Alzheimer’s

Sleep pattern lowered levels of an antioxidant that helps fight cellular damage, such as that caused by Alzheimer’s.

Sleep pattern lowered levels of an antioxidant that helps fight cellular damage, such as that caused by Alzheimer’s.

Sleep disruptions similar to jet lag could cause memory problems linked to Alzheimer’s disease, research finds.

It’s well-known by scientists that there’s a link between Alzheimer’s and sleep, but not what causes what.

Professor Gregory Brewer, who led the research, said:

“The issue is whether poor sleep accelerates the development of Alzheimer’s disease or vice versa.

It’s a chicken-or-egg dilemma, but our research points to disruption of sleep as the accelerator of memory loss.”

The research gave jet-lag to mice that had been genetically engineered to suffer from Alzheimer’s.

They did this by moving the dark period every three days to a different time — which is what causes jet-lag.

The jet-lagged mice had lower levels of an antioxidant that helps fight cellular damage, such as that caused by Alzheimer’s.

This suggests it could be poor sleep that is contributing to the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

Professor Brewer said:

“This study suggests that clinicians and caregivers should add good sleep habits to regular exercise and a healthy diet to maximize good memory.”

Dementia and sleep

Many other studies have found a link between dementia and sleep.

People who sleep for too little or too long are at a higher risk of cognitive decline and dementia.

Indeed, people who sleep more than 9 hours a night have double the risk of developing dementia, one study found.

However, those who sleep for between 5.5 and 7.5 hours per night do not see declines in their cognitive health, even when suffering the early effects of Alzheimer’s disease.

Those sleeping longer also have lower brain volumes.

Also, getting less REM sleep — the phase in which we dream — is linked to dementia.

During sleep the brain cycles between periods of deep sleep and then up towards shallower periods of sleep in which we tend to dream, whether we remember those dreams or not.

During REM sleep the eyes move rapidly from side-to-side (hence Rapid Eye Movement Sleep).

Sleep apnea has also been linked to developing Alzheimer’s disease.

The most common signs of sleep apnea, which affects 30 percent of older people, include:

  • Loud snoring,
  • gasping for air during sleep,
  • breathing stopping for brief periods during the night,
  • morning headache,
  • and daytime sleepiness and irritability.

The study was published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease (Brewer et al., 2015).

The Mineral That Reverses Memory Loss

Supplementation of this natural mineral can reverse memory loss and cognitive deficits.

Supplementation of this natural mineral can reverse memory loss and cognitive deficits.

Selenium is an essential nutrient found in many foods such as brazil nuts, fish, eggs, long-grain brown rice, beef, chicken, and milk.

This powerful antioxidant is important for our immune system, metabolism, thyroid function, and cognitive health.

According to a study, selenium can reverse the cognitive problems after a stroke and improve cognitive function including memory and learning.

Past studies have found that physical activity slows down age-related cognitive decline.

Exercise elevates the levels of upregulated proteins in the blood and one is selenoprotein P (SEPP1) that transports selenium to the brain.

Dr Tara Walker, the study’s senior author, said:

“We’ve known for the last 20 years that exercise can create new neurons in the brain, but we didn’t really understand how.”

The researchers wanted to know whether selenium supplements can mimic the effects of exercise on the aging brain.

In this experiment, mice were given Seleno-L-methionine (a form of selenium) for a month.

Dr Walker said:

“Our models showed that selenium supplementation could increase neuron generation and improve cognition in elderly mice.

The levels of new neuron generation decrease rapidly in aged mice, as they do in humans.

When selenium supplements were given to the mice, the production of neurons increased, reversing the cognitive deficits observed in aging.”

The research team also examined if selenium can reverse memory loss and improve learning function in people with brain injury after a stroke.

Dr Walker said:

“Young mice are really good at the learning and memory tasks, but after a stroke, they could no longer perform these tasks.

We found that learning and memory deficits of stroke affected mice returned to normal when they were given selenium supplements.”

However, a high intake of selenium supplementation in the long-term can cause serious health issue, thus, foods containing selenium seem to be a much better option.

Nuts, seafoods, legumes, eggs, whole grains, meat, and dairy products all contain selenium and so they can easily be added to the diet of the elderly and those with disability who are unable to exercise.

Dr Dr Walker added:

“Selenium supplements shouldn’t be seen as a complete substitute for exercise, and too much can be bad for you.

A person who is getting a balanced diet of fruits, nuts, veggies and meat usually has good selenium levels.

But in older people, particularly those with neurological conditions, selenium supplements could be beneficial.”

The study was published in the journal Cell Metabolism (Leiter et al., 2022).

The Type Of Films And Stories That Make You Smarter

An unsettling feeling, like the absurdity of life, can engender the desired state.

An unsettling feeling, like the absurdity of life, can engender the desired state.

Surreal books and films could make you smarter, research finds.

Stories by Franz Kafka or films by master of the absurd David Lynch could boost learning.

Even an unsettling feeling, like the absurdity of life, can engender the desired state.

The reason is that surreal or nonsensical things put our mind into overdrive looking for meaning.

When people are more motivated to search for meaning, they learn better, the psychologists found.

Dr Travis Proulx, the study’s first author, explained:

“The idea is that when you’re exposed to a meaning threat –– something that fundamentally does not make sense –– your brain is going to respond by looking for some other kind of structure within your environment.

And, it turns out, that structure can be completely unrelated to the meaning threat.”

For the study, people read a Franz Kafka’s short story called ‘The Country Doctor’ — which involves a nonsensical series of events.

A version of the story was rewritten to make more sense and read by a control group.

Afterwards, both groups were given an unconscious learning task that involved spotting strings of letters.

Dr Proulx said:

“People who read the nonsensical story checked off more letter strings –– clearly they were motivated to find structure.

But what’s more important is that they were actually more accurate than those who read the more normal version of the story.

They really did learn the pattern better than the other participants did.”

In a second study, people were made to feel their own lives didn’t make sense.

This was done by pointing out the contradictory decisions they had made.

Dr Proulx said:

“You get the same pattern of effects whether you’re reading Kafka or experiencing a breakdown in your sense of identity.

People feel uncomfortable when their expected associations are violated, and that creates an unconscious desire to make sense of their surroundings.

That feeling of discomfort may come from a surreal story, or from contemplating their own contradictory behaviors, but either way, people want to get rid of it.

So they’re motivated to learn new patterns.”

The study only tested unconscious learning, it doesn’t tell us whether you would be able to use this trick intentionally.

Dr Proulx said:

“It’s important to note that sitting down with a Kafka story before exam time probably wouldn’t boost your performance on a test.

What is critical here is that our participants were not expecting to encounter this bizarre story.

If you expect that you’ll encounter something strange or out of the ordinary, you won’t experience the same sense of alienation.

You may be disturbed by it, but you won’t show the same learning ability.

The key to our study is that our participants were surprised by the series of unexpected events, and they had no way to make sense of them.

Hence, they strived to make sense of something else.”

The study was published in the journal Psychological Science (Proulx & Heine, 2009).

People Make Fewer Memory Errors In Their Second Language (M)

The benefits of learning a second language include increased attention, improved multitasking, better listening skills and reduced dementia risk.

The benefits of learning a second language include increased attention, improved multitasking, better listening skills and reduced dementia risk.


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Memory: The Weirdest Ever Fact is Actually True

This fact about memory might seem depressing, but it is critical to useful recall.

This fact about memory might seem depressing, but it is critical to useful recall.

Recalling one memory actually leads to the forgetting of other competing memories, a study confirms.

It is one of the single most surprising facts about memory, now isolated by neuroscience research.

Although many scientists believed the brain must work this way, it has been demonstrated.

Dr Maria Wimber, a cognitive neuroscientist and the study’s first author, said:

“Though there has been an emerging belief within the academic field that the brain has this inhibitory mechanism, I think a lot of people are surprised to hear that recalling memories has this darker side of making us forget others by actually suppressing them.”

The study monitored people’s brain activity while they tried to recall images they had been shown earlier.

By measuring activity in tiny sections of the brain, the neuroscientists were able to track individual memories.

They found that as one memory was recalled, others were suppressed.

Each subsequent time a target memory was recalled, it became stronger, while the others became weaker.

Dr Michael Anderson, a neuroscientist who co-led the study, said:

“People are used to thinking of forgetting as something passive.

Our research reveals that people are more engaged than they realize in shaping what they remember of their lives.

The idea that the very act of remembering can cause forgetting is surprising, and could tell us more about selective memory and even self deception.”

The process is believed to be critical to how memory and learning work.

Here’s how I’ve explained it previously:

“The idea that forgetting helps you learn seems counter-intuitive, but think of it this way: imagine if you created a brain that could remember and recall everything.

When this amazing brain was trying to remember where it parked the car, it would immediately bring to mind all the car parks it had ever seen, then it would have to sort through the lot.

Obviously the only one that’s of interest is the most recent.

And this is generally true of most of our memories.

Recent events are usually much more important than ones that happened a long time ago.

To make your super-brain quicker and more useful in the real world you’d have to build in some system for discounting old, useless info.

In fact, of course, we all have one of these super-brains with a discounting system: we call it ‘forgetting’.”

Dr Wimber suggested another situation in which forgetting is useful:

“Forgetting is often viewed as a negative thing, but of course, it can be incredibly useful when trying to overcome a negative memory from our past.

So there are opportunities for this to be applied in areas to really help people.”

He continued:

“It has significance for anything that relies on memory, but a really good example is that of eyewitness testimonies.

When a witness is asked to recall specific information about an event, and they are quizzed time and time again, it could well be to the detriment of associated memories — giving the impression that their memory is sketchy.

In fact, the repeated recall is causing them to forget these details.”

The study was published in the journal Nature Neuroscience (Wimber et al., 2015).

The Mild Nutrient Deficiency Linked To Memory Loss (M)

Supplementation reversed the effects of age-related memory loss.

Supplementation reversed the effects of age-related memory loss.

A diet low in flavanols is linked to age-related memory loss, a large study finds.

However, taking a daily flavanol supplement over three years reversed these losses.

Many people already get enough flavanols from a healthy diet, however those with a poorer diet will probably benefit.

Flavanols, which are a type of flavonoid, are found in nearly all fruits and vegetables, as well as in tea.

Participants in the study with a mild flavanol deficiency experienced boosts to their cognitive functioning of 16 percent over the three years of the study.

Professor Adam Brickman, the study’s first author, said:

“The improvement among study participants with low-flavanol diets was substantial and raises the possibility of using flavanol-rich diets or supplements to improve cognitive function in older adults.”

Neurons in the hippocampus

Professor Scott Small, study co-author, has been studying age-related memory loss for many years.

His lab has shown that changes in the dentate gyrus, a part of the hippocampus, are central to memory decline.

Flavanols, though, enhance neuron and blood vessel growth in this region.

Professor Small said:

“The identification of nutrients critical for the proper development of an infant’s nervous system was a crowning achievement of 20th century nutrition science.

In this century, as we are living longer research is starting to reveal that different nutrients are needed to fortify our aging minds.”

The current study included over 3,500 healthy adults given either a flavanol supplement or a placebo over three years.

The supplement contained 500 mg of flavanols, including 80 mg of epicatechins, a type of flavanol thought to be particularly effective.

The memories of those with mild flavanol deficiencies improved by 10.5 percent compared to placebo and by 16 percent compared to their scores at the start of the study.

Dramatic improvements

While the study provides strong evidence for the benefits of a healthy dietary flavanol intake, Professor Small is cautious:

“We cannot yet definitively conclude that low dietary intake of flavanols alone causes poor memory performance, because we did not conduct the opposite experiment: depleting flavanol in people who are not deficient.”

Next, Professor Small wants to look at the effects of rectifying a severe flavanol deficiency:

“Age-related memory decline is thought to occur sooner or later in nearly everyone, though there is a great amount of variability.

If some of this variance is partly due to differences in dietary consumption of flavanols, then we would see an even more dramatic improvement in memory in people who replenish dietary flavanols when they’re in their 40s and 50s.”

High-flavanol foods

Foods that containing high levels of flavanols include:

  • pears,
  • olive oil,
  • wine,
  • tomato sauce,
  • kale,
  • beans,
  • tea,
  • spinach,
  • broccoli,
  • apples,
  • and oranges.

Related

The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Brickman et al., 2023).

Forgetfulness Is Common Even Among Young — Sometimes With Tragic Consequences (M)

In the United States, since 1998 almost 1,000 children have died in the car after their caregiver forgot about them.

In the United States, since 1998 almost 1,000 children have died in the car after their caregiver forgot about them.


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The Foods That Can Quickly Lead To Memory Loss

The rapid damage done to the brain by eating these foods is surprising.

The rapid damage done to the brain by eating these foods is surprising.

Eating a diet of highly processed foods could seriously damage your memory, a study on rats suggests.

A diet high in foods like soft drinks, chips, candy, ice-cream and packaged soups is linked to neuroinflammation and cognitive problems.

However, the omega-3 fatty acid DHA almost completely reverses this effect — even in older rats.

Foods high in DHA include salmon, trout, oysters, cod and canned tuna.

The rapid damage done to the brain by eating highly processed foods is surprising, said Dr Ruth Barrientos, study co-author:

“The fact we’re seeing these effects so quickly is a little bit alarming.

These findings indicate that consumption of a processed diet can produce significant and abrupt memory deficits—and in the aging population, rapid memory decline has a greater likelihood of progressing into neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease.

By being aware of this, maybe we can limit processed foods in our diets and increase consumption of foods that are rich in the omega-3 fatty acid DHA to either prevent or slow that progression.”

The study on rats fed some of them a standard diet or one that mimicked the highly processed diet that many people around the world now consume.

A third group were given the highly processed diet along with DHA supplementation.

Eating a highly processed diet caused inflammation in critical areas of the brain, including the hippocampus and amygdala.

Dr Barrientos explained:

“The amygdala in humans has been implicated in memories associated with emotional—fear and anxiety-producing—events.

If this region of the brain is dysfunctional, cues that predict danger may be missed and could lead to bad decisions.”

The hippocampus, meanwhile is vital for memory.

Rats fed the highly processed diet subsequently demonstrated memory loss, unless they were given DHA supplementation.

Prevention is better than cure, though, and highly processed foods are unhealthy in many ways, warned Dr Barrientos:

“These are the types of diets that are advertised as being low in fat, but they’re highly processed.

They have no fiber and have refined carbohydrates that are also known as low-quality carbohydrates.

Folks who are used to looking at nutritional information need to pay attention to the fiber and quality of carbohydrates.

This study really shows those things are important.”

The study was published in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity (Butler et al., 2021).