Circadian Clock May Be Critical For Remembering What You Learn, Researchers Say

Circadian Clock May Be Critical For Remembering What You Learn, Researchers Say: "ScienceDaily (Oct. 9, 2008) — The circadian rhythm that quietly pulses inside us all, guiding our daily cycle from sleep to wakefulness and back to sleep again, may be doing much more than just that simple metronomic task...has shown that having a functioning circadian system is critical to the hamsters' ability to remember what they have learned. Without it, he said, "They can't remember anything."...The change in learning retention appears to hinge on the amount of a neurochemical called GABA, which acts to inhibit brain activity. All mammal brains function according to the balance between neurochemicals that excite the brain and those that calm it. The circadian clock controls the daily cycle of sleep and wakefulness by inhibiting different parts of the brain by releasing GABA...if the hippocampus - the part of the brain where memories are stored - is overly inhibited, then the circuits responsible for memory storage don't function properly..."What I thought was happening was that our animals were having chronically high levels of GABA because they had lost their circadian rhythm," Ruby said. "So instead of rhythmic GABA, it is just constant GABA output."...gave the circadian-deficient hamsters a GABA antagonist called pentylenetetrazole, or PTZ, which blocks GABA from binding to synapses, thereby allowing the synapses to continue firing and keeping the brain in a more excited state. It worked. The learning-impaired hamsters caught up with their intact peers to exhibit the same level of learning retention...Other researchers working with mouse models of Alzheimer's disease have reported similar findings. When those mice were given GABA antagonists, their ability to learn was restored, suggesting a possible link with their circadian system... findings may also have implications for the decline in memory function that older adults in general experience..."

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Sleep linked to brain cell creation - neurogenesis

BrainConnection - The Brain and Learning: (UPI via COMTEX)
2007.02.10
" Losing sleep may cause the brain to stop producing new brain cells, a study conducted by New Jersey's Princeton University has found...By depriving rats of sleep for 72 hours, the researchers found that those animals consequently had increased amounts of the stress hormone corticosterone, and produced significantly fewer new brain cells in the hippocampus...When the rats' sleep patterns were returned to normal a week later, their levels of nerve-cell production remained hindered for two weeks."

Four Days Of REM Sleep Deprivation Affects Forebrain, Long-term Memory In Rats: "ScienceDaily (Feb. 6, 2008)"

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Can Celery, Chamomile and Green Peppers Help Cut Brain Inflammation?

Can Celery Help Cut Brain Inflammation? WebMD
2008.05.20
"A compound found in celery and green peppers may help protect against inflammatory brain conditions. The compound, called luteolin, is a potent antioxidant known for its anti-inflammatory properties. Luteolin belongs to a family of plant molecules called flavonoids, which are found in various vegetables, fruits, and beverages, including chamomile tea...luteolin reduced the inflammation triggered by the bacteria. The researchers also learned that the celery compound blocked a "promoter" to the gene that coded for an inflammatory signaling molecule..."

Plant Flavonoid In Celery And Green Peppers Found To Reduce Inflammatory Response In The Brain: "ScienceDaily (May 20, 2008) — Researchers at the University of Illinois report that a plant compound found in abundance in celery and green peppers can disrupt a key component of the inflammatory response in the brain. The findings have implications for research on aging and diseases such as Alzheimer's and multiple sclerosis...luteolin was shutting down production of a key cytokine in the inflammatory pathway, interleukin-6 (IL-6). The effects of luteolin exposure were dramatic, resulting in as much as a 90 percent drop in IL-6 production in the LPS-treated cells. "This was just about as potent an inhibition as anything we had seen previously," Johnson said..."Inflammatory cytokines such as interleukin-6 are very well known to inhibit certain types of learning and memory that are under the control of the hippocampus, and the hippocampus is also very vulnerable to the insults of aging," he said. "If you had the potential to decrease the production of inflammatory cytokines in the brain you could potentially limit the cognitive deficits that result."...

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Exercise pill hope for depression

Exercise pill hope for depression - BBC News
2007.12.05
"While the link between exercise and improved mood is well known, the reasons behind it are not fully understood. The latest research focuses on an area of the brain called the hippocampus, which is already established as a target for antidepressant drugs. The team developed a test to see which genes in this region were made more active during exercise, and highlighted one called VGF. This gene is linked to a "growth factor" chemical involved in the development of nerve cells. This fitted with their theory that, for depression to lift, changes in the actual structure and links between brain cells are needed, not just changes in the chemicals surrounding the cells. The next step was to make a version of that chemical, and to test it on mice, where it showed an effect on their behaviour that roughly equated to antidepressant effects in humans. The researchers believe that a drug based on VGF could offer "possibly even superior efficacy" to current antidepressants. Marcus Roberts, Head of Policy at Mind, said that, currently, the use of exercise as a treatment for mental health problems should be recommended by doctors."Mind has long recommended physical exercise as a way of improving mental wellbeing, and many people who experience mental distress have told us that exercise has hugely benefited their mental health. "Our own research has shown that outdoor exercise can decrease feelings of depression and increase self-esteem by inspiring a sense of achievement - the evidence is growing that this should be treated as a clinically valid treatment." "

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Sleep Deprivation May Impair Memory

Staying Up All Night Makes for Fuzzy Memories, Study Shows WebMD 2/12/07 "Sleep deprivation tends to hamper the brain's ability to make new memories, a new study shows. The study, published online in Nature Neuroscience, comes from researchers at Harvard Medical School and Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center"

The researchers found that just one night of sleep deprivation has significant effects on memory. The theory is that either sleep deprivation itself prevents new memory formation, or that the brain is overwhelmed and cannot properly lay down the memory for later recall. Specific details are lacking in the articles on this so far.

Maybe associated with this is another study from Princeton that shows that sleep deprivation prevents new cell formation in the hippocampus.

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