Scientists discover why older adults need to get more deep sleep

Poor sleep quality and erratic bedtime may adversely affect the ability of older adults to recall information about past events, a study has found.

Researchers also found unexpected racial differences in the type of sleep patterns tied to lower memory performance across both younger and older African American research participants.

The findings may help open up a new area of research aimed at understanding the potential connection between poor sleep and the memory declines associated with ageing. 

The study also underscores the importance of sleep in maintaining good cognitive functioning.
"The night-to-night variability in the older study participants had a major impact on their performance in tests aimed at evaluating episodic memory," said  an associate professor.

"The association between sleep and memory has been known, but this study's novelty is showing that the connection is particularly evident for older adults and black participants, regardless of age," he said.

Researchers recruited 81 volunteers who were evaluated carefully to screen out those who had mild cognitive impairment or other potentially confounding factors. 

Younger adults were recruited in the age range of 18 to 37 years, while older adults were recruited in the range from 56 to 76 years. Ultimately, 50 adults were selected for the study.

The participants were given accelerometers worn on their wrists to measure sleep duration and quality over a period of seven nights. 

Though they did not measure brain waves, the devices allowed sleep measurements to be done in the participants' own homes. 

The researchers sought to provide a more realistic measurement than testing done in sleep labs, which typically lasts just one night.

Participants were asked to take a memory test that measured electroencephalography (EEG) brain wave activity as they attempted to recall word pairs that had been shown to them earlier. 

Better performance correlated with better sleep in most of the older adults.

The relationship between poor sleep and memory-related brain activity extended to both older and younger black participants -- some of whom were college students. 

To understand the potential causes of the poor sleep, they administered a standardised questionnaire designed to measure stress levels in those participants.

The study found that black adults slept for 36 minutes less than other adults, which translated into a 12 per cent decrease in memory-related brain activity. 

On an average night, black adults in the study spent 15 minutes more time awake after falling asleep than did other participants.

The study also found significant variation among subjects in each age group. 

"Some of our 70-year-old subjects looked like our 20-year-old students. There are many factors that contribute to individual differences," he said.

The study's takeaway message may be that regular sleep is important at any age for the best cognitive performance.

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Head injuries lead to serious brain diseases- Here's all you need to know

 In a recent study, biologists discovered how head injuries adversely affect individual cells and genes that can lead to serious brain disorders. The researchers studied more than 6,000 cells in 15 hippocampal cell types -- the first study of individual cell types subject to brain trauma. Each cell has the same DNA, but which genes are activated varies among different cell types. Among the 15 cell types are two that were previously unknown, each with a unique set of active genes.
The life scientists provide the first cell 'atlas' of the hippocampus -- the part of the brain that helps regulate learning and memory -- when it is affected by traumatic brain injury. The team also proposed gene candidates for treating brain diseases associated with traumatic brain injuries, such as Alzheimer's disease and post-traumatic stress disorder.
"Every cell type is different," said  co-senior author of the study.  The biologists found that hundreds of genes are adversely affected by mild traumatic brain injury, such as a concussion. These altered genes can later lead to Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other diseases.
The researchers reproduced a concussion-like brain injury in mice and studied other mice that did not receive a brain injury. The researchers analysed thousands of cells in the hippocampus of both groups of mice.
The mice without an injury had very low levels in 14 of the 15 cell types of a gene called TTR that regulates metabolism, controls thyroid hormones and performs other functions. Brain trauma increased the level of Ttr in essentially all of the cell types, the researchers found.
They concluded TTR is important to brain health and may function to bring more thyroid hormone to the brain to maintain metabolism. A thyroid hormone called T4 was injected in mice. T4 improved traumatic brain injury-induced learning deficits and reversed changes in 93 genes that affect learning and memory.
This reversal in damage caused by traumatic brain injury is a major new finding. After brain injury, metabolism is substantially reduced. The biologists think T4 may "reboot" metabolism.
Researchers found evidence that at least 12 of 15 cell types are negatively affected by brain trauma, some more strongly than others. They were able to see how genes that have been linked to Alzheimer's disease acted within different cell types, providing new details about where these genes act when they are affected by brain trauma.
"We are learning which cell types we may want to target in future research," said  a senior author of the study. "Maybe Alzheimer's disease-related genes do not have to be active in all different cell types."
For the first time, the biologists found several genes that are affected by traumatic brain injury, which has recently been linked to neurotic behaviour in humans. Traumatic brain injury has been associated with depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia. This research could lead to new treatments for these conditions. 

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