The role that amyloid plaque plays in Alzheimer’s disease is well-known, but here is a paradox that has confounded scientists for decades. You would think that Alzheimer’s patients would show large accumulations of amyloid plaque in the area of the brain responsible for long-term memory storage—the hippocampus. But that’s not true. In fact, Alzheimer’s patients show the greatest amount of amyloid accumulation in the mid-region of their frontal lobe.
Because our brain does its heavy memory lifting when we are asleep, this means that when we learn new information and then are given a chance to “sleep on it,” our recall is better. For instance, onehad a group of older adults memorize a string of word pairs like tree-chair or dog-pencil. Then they were allowed a full night’s sleep and their memory for these word pairs was tested.
When we get good quality sleep, our brain acts like a steel trap for our memories. But when we are sleep-deprived, our brain acts like a sieve. Important information and memories never make it to long-term storage. They slip through the cracks and are lost forever. This is the case for people of any age, but especially older adults. As a result, what on the surface looks like age-related dementia may in fact really be sleep-deprived dementia.
More nonsense. If you explain this to a physician, psychiatrists or psychologist, you will most likely get the dead pan look. Sleep impairs a lot of things,but it is secondary in healthcare interactions, where they will more than likely misdiagnose these disorders for years.
albayti_ahmed
Our brains don’t have enough time to process all the information we perceive in a day.
Lots of interesting research studying Alzheimer’s Disorder. I’m involved in a project myself....All good news!
Have you guys seen the article sharing research about how sleep flushes toxins from the brain by encouraging cerebrospinal fluid? Seems relevant! I can share it here if you want.
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