Dr. Ann says deep sleep leads to better memory

By: Dr. Ann Kulze

Rejoice! New science has uncovered yet another compelling reason to make quality sleep a sacred priority: superior memory.

Past studies have confirmed a clear link between poor sleep and the build-up of the toxic brain protein called amyloid, a hallmark of Alzheimer’s dementia. What’s more, deep sleep is known to be the period in our 24-hour day where our brains rid themselves of these damaging proteins.

With this in mind, University of California, Berkeley sleep scientists had 62 healthy older adults without dementia spend the night in the sleep lab where their sleep could be carefully monitored. Each subject also had PET (positron emission tomography) scans performed to measure how much amyloid was in their brains. Half the subjects had large levels of amyloid and half didn’t. After the night of sleep, each study subject completed memory tests.

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