Nerdy Science Blog

Neuroscientists from the University of Pennsylvania, University of Glasgow and University of Toronto found that lack of sleep cause people to be forgetful. The neuroscientists study mice and humans and found that sleep deprivation disrupts a specific molecule in the brain’s memory circuitry (hippocampus), which cause the interruption of the storage of episodic memories. Episodic memories are information about who, what, when, and where.

The neuroscientists believes the long-term potentiation (LTP) is the strengthening of connection between neurons that underlies memory. The stimulation of LTP in the brain requires the molecule cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP), which is a molecular messenger involving in regulating activity of memory formation genes by passing signals between proteins. Sleep-deprived mice had 50% less cAMP in their brain cells compared to well-rested mice. The scientists also noticed increased amount of PDE4A5, a type of phosphodiesterase (PDE) enzyme that degrades cAMP, in sleep-deprived mice.

The findings provide a possibility to develop drug that knock out PDE4A5 to enhance the memories of sleepyheads. The results were published in Nature on 22th October 2009. The authors are Christopher G. Vecsey, George S. Baillie, Devan Jaganath, Robbert Havekes, Andrew Daniels, Mathieu Wimmer, Ted Huang, Kim M. Brown, Xiang-Yao Li, Giannina Descalzi, Susan S. Kim, Tao Chen, Yu-Ze Shang, Min Zhuo, Miles D. Houslay, and Ted Abel.

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