A deficit in the ability to form new human memories without sleep

            Seung-Schik, Y., Hu, P. T., Gujar, N., Jolesz, F. A., & Walker, M. P. (2007). A deficit in the ability to form new human memories without sleep. Nature Neuroscience, 10(3), 385-392. doi:10.1038/nn1851. Retrieved from EBSCO.

In our discussions, lecture, and film of Chapter 13 material, we included the many different functions of sleep and dreaming, such as honing creativity, aiding in learning and problem-solving, and storing memories. Clearly, the function of sleep in our everyday lives is an important one. Studies of what happens without sleep are abundant in the literature, especially the impact of sleep deprivation on the brain. Specifically, many studies cite the importance of sleep in storing memories and learning. But does prior sleep play as important a role to learning and encoding memories? Seung-Schik, Hu, Gujar, Jolesz, & Walker, (2007) found that it does. As we have learned, the hippocampus plays a key role in memory encoding and storage. Researchers reported that just one night of sleep deprivation negatively impacted activity in the hippocampus for encoding episodic memory. Other parts of the brain involved in memory formation that were impacted by a night of sleep deprivation include areas of the brainstem and thalamus that control alertness. The overall findings of the study are useful. Not only is sleep after learning key to retention but sleep is essential prior to learning in preparation for learning. Researchers mentioned two possibilities resulting from sleep deprivation: first, the lack of sleep could contribute to poorer neural activity during encoding. On the other hand, the prolonged waking period could result in continuous encoding, which could place too heavy a role on the typically short-term memory capacity of the hippocampus. The implications of this study are obvious, especially to college students like us who have a habit of not getting enough sleep and are required to enter classrooms daily to encode new information and retain it not only for exams but for our futures.