Researchers from the Universities of Groningen (Netherlands) and Pennsylvania have discovered a piece in the puzzle of how sleep deprivation negatively affects memory. For the first time, a study in mice shows that five hours of sleep deprivation leads to a loss of connectivity between neurons in the hippocampus, a region of the brain associated with learning and memory. “It’s clear that sleep plays an important role in memory – we know that taking naps helps us retain important memories. But how sleep deprivation impairs hippocampal function and memory is less obvious,” says first author Robbert Havekes, PhD, assistant professor at the Groningen Institute of Evolutionary Life Sciences. To read more, click here.
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