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New Delhi: Staying up all night to
revise your exam syllabus just one more time might not
be a great idea after all. Far from brushing up your
memory, it might lead you to forget most of what you
learned.
Recent research by the School of Life Sciences (SLS)
in Jawaharlal Nehru University has revealed that sleep
plays a significant role in encoding information and
retaining what is learned through the day. So after a
day of cramming, if you are sleepdeprived, chances are
you will remember very little. The research team, led by
Dr Sushil Jha, found that rats deprived of sleep for six
hours just after learning a task couldn’t perform the
same task well the next day while the other group that
got adequate sleep replicated the task accurately.
‘Sleep necessary for subject recall’
Pulling an allnighter before an exam may
cause you to forget what you have studied, recent
research by the School of Life Sciences (SLS) in
Jawaharlal Nehru University has revealed. Sleep plays a
vital role in retaining information, the study says.
The research team led by Dr Sushil Jha is currently
working on establishing that learning, in turn, changes
sleep pattern. “Yes, if you have gone through any kind
of training, you may sleep more. This is not just
because you are tired but because memory consolidation
needs proper sleep. Sleep also activates the protein
synthesis machinery in the brain which helps consolidate
memory. Further, sleep helps in brain development, which
is why babies sleep more,” said Jha, assistant professor
of neuroscience at SLS. He said this was the first time
in India that research showed sleep deprivation impaired
trace-learning in rats.
One of the studies by the team, on impairment of
memory due to sleep deprivation, was published in
Elsevier journal. “We used male Wistar rats that were
taught a task using a paired stimulus of fruit juice and
light. Juice was always given after presenting light as
a cue to them in their chamber. While all the rats were
taught these cues, one group of rats was not allowed to
sleep for six hours after learning and the other was
allowed to sleep. Next morning, when we gave the cues
again, the sleep-deprived rats showed an impaired
performance. They poked the juice 45.72% less than the
non-sleep deprived group,” said Jha.
Recent research from the University of Notre Dame
also shows that going to sleep shortly after learning
new material is most beneficial for recall. The study
was performed with 207 students and concluded that
recall was best when students slept for sometime right
after lessons.
“If a person is stressed then the retrieval
phenomenon of memories is also impaired. His health is
also compromised if he doesn’t get proper sleep. That is
why most people who are sleep deprived also tend to
suffer from hypertension, diabetes and obesity. These
conditions are related,” he said.
Another study by the group published in ‘Frontiers
in Neurology’ looks at the function of rapid eye m(REM)
sleep state in maintaining a long spell of sleep. The
study suggests that when one is in deep sleep (non-REM
sleep), breathing rate goes down and that is why CO2
level increases in the body. REM sleep eliminates excess
CO2 from the body and helps maintain uninterrupted
sleep. |
