Aging Hinders Memory Storage During Sleep

July 31, 2008

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7/29/2008 12:00:00 AM

TUESDAY, July 29 (HealthDay News) -- Aging hinders the consolidation of

memories during sleep, a process that's crucial for the conversion of fresh

memories into long-term ones, say University of Arizona researchers.

The researchers recorded activity in the hippocampus -- a brain region

involved in learning and memory -- in 11 young and 11 old rats as they

navigated mazes for food rewards. The rats' hippocampal activity was

recorded again when they slept.

In the young rats, the sequence of neural activity recorded while they

navigated the mazes was repeated while they slept. This was not the case in

most of the older rats.

The researchers also found that among both young and old rats, those with

the best sleep replay performed the best in their age groups on spatial

memory tasks.

" This is the first study to suggest that an animal's ability to perform a

spatial memory task may be related to the brain's ability to perform memory

consolidation during sleep, " study author Carol said in a Society for

Neuroscience news release.

The study is in the July 30 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.

" These findings suggest that some of the memory impairment experienced

during aging could involve a reduction in the automatic process of

experience replay, " Hasselmo, of Boston University, said in a

Society for Neuroscience news release.

Identifying the specific memory deficit in the brains of older adults may be

the first step to preventing age-related memory loss, he said.

" This study's findings could inspire the development and testing of

pharmacological agents designed to enhance memory replay phenomena, " Hasselmo

said.

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