A new study reported by the Nature Neuroscience journal may provide answers as to why memory declines with age. As we age and brain changes naturally occur, our overall sleep quality is affected leading to a decline in the brain’s ability to store new long term memories.
The study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, is the first to directly link structural changes with sleep-related memory problems. Doctors can not reverse changes that occur in the brain, but have found that by improving the sleep quality of aging adults can improve memory function. Ken Paller, a professor of psychology and the director of the cognitive neuroscience program at Northwestern University, who was not involved in the research, said that the study told “a convincing story, I think: that atrophy is related to slow-wave sleep, which we know is related to memory performance. So it’s a contributing factor.”
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