Date: 11/24/2008
By LAURAN NEERGAARD
AP Medical Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) _ Just in time for the holidays, some medical advice most people will like: Take a nap.
Interrupting sleep seriously disrupts memory-making, compelling new research suggests. But on the flip side, taking a nap may boost a sophisticated kind of memory that helps us see the big picture and get creative.
“Not only do we need to remember to sleep, but most certainly we sleep to remember,” is how Dr. William Fishbein, a cognitive neuroscientist at the City University of New York, put it at a meeting of the Society for Neuroscience last week.
Good sleep is a casualty of our 24/7 world. Surveys suggest few adults attain the recommended seven to eight hours a night.
Way too little clearly is dangerous: Sleep deprivation causes not just car crashes but all sorts of other accidents. Over time, a chronic lack of sleep can erode the body in ways that leave us more vulnerable to heart disease, diabetes and other illnesses.
But perhaps more common than insomnia is fragmented sleep — the easy awakening that comes with aging, or, worse, the sleep apnea that afflicts millions, who quit breathing for 30 seconds or so over and over throughout the night.
Indeed, scientists increasingly are focusing less on sleep duration and more on the quality of sleep, what’s called sleep intensity, in studying how sleep helps the brain process memories so they stick. Particularly important is “slow-wave sleep,” a period of very deep sleep that comes earlier than better-known REM sleep, or dreaming time.
Fishbein suspected a more active role for the slow-wave sleep that can emerge even in a power nap. Maybe our brains keep working during that time to solve problems and come up with new ideas. So he and graduate student Hiuyan Lau devised a simple test: documenting relational memory, where the brain puts together separately learned facts in new ways.
First, they taught 20 English-speaking college students lists of Chinese words spelled with two characters — such as sister, mother, maid. Then half the students took a nap, being monitored to be sure they didn’t move from slow-wave sleep into the REM stage.
Upon awakening, they took a multiple-choice test of Chinese words they’d never seen before. The nappers did much better at automatically learning that the first of the two-pair characters in the words they’d memorized earlier always meant the same thing — female, for example. So they also were more likely than non-nappers to choose that a new word containing that character meant “princess” and not “ape.”
“The nap group has essentially teased out what’s going on,” Fishbein concludes.
These students took a 90-minute nap, quite a luxury for most adults. But even a 12-minute nap can boost some forms of memory, adds Dr. Robert Stickgold of Harvard Medical School.
Conversely, Wisconsin researchers briefly interrupted nighttime slow-wave sleep by playing a beep — just loudly enough to disturb sleep but not awaken — and found those people couldn’t remember a task they’d learned the day before as well as people whose slow-wave sleep wasn’t disrupted.
That brings us back to fragmented sleep, whether from aging or apnea. It can suppress the birth of new brain cells in the hippocampus, where memory-making begins — enough to hinder learning weeks after sleep returns to normal, warns Dr. Dennis McGinty of the University of California, Los Angeles.
To prove a lasting effect, McGinty mimicked human sleep apnea in rats. He hooked them to brain monitors and made them sleep on a treadmill. Whenever the monitors detected 30 seconds of sleep, the treadmill briefly switched on. After 12 days of this sleep disturbance, McGinty let the rats sleep peacefully for as long as they wanted for the next two weeks.
The catch-up sleep didn’t help: Rested rats used room cues to quickly learn the escape hole in a maze. Those with fragmented sleep two weeks earlier couldn’t, only randomly stumbling upon the escape.
None of the new work is enough, yet, to pinpoint the minimum sleep needed for optimal memory. What’s needed may vary considerably from person to person.
“A short sleeper may have a very efficient deep sleep even if they sleep only four hours,” notes Dr. Chiara Cirellia of the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
But altogether, the findings do suggest some practical advice: Get apnea treated. Avoid what Harvard’s Stickgold calls “sleep bulimia,” super-late nights followed by sleep-in weekends. And don’t feel guilty for napping.
___
EDITOR’S NOTE — Lauran Neergaard covers health and medical issues for The Associated Press in Washington.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
‘Mind spa’: This is your brain on exercise
Date: 11/19/2008
By RASHA MADKOUR
Associated Press Writer
SARASOTA, Fla. (AP) _ Seniors in this retirement hotspot diligently packed the local Y, sweating to keep their bodies in shape. But after their workout, several couldn’t remember where they put their car keys.
Watching this scenario unfold, neurotherapist George Rozelle thought: Wouldn’t it be great to have a health club where people could keep their brains fit? And so it was born: the Neurobics Club.
The center uses computer programs and other gadgets that stimulate the brain to help those who feel they aren’t as sharp as they used to be, or, as Rozelle puts it, people who are understressing their brains. Some doctors are skeptical about such programs’ benefit and cost, but Rozelle isn’t deterred.
“The fun part of this field is that it’s growing rapidly. There’s a lot of interest now in healthy aging,” Rozelle says. “The baby boomers are getting older and they’re not liking it.”
Dr. David Loewenstein, a University of Miami brain disorders researcher, said there’s much interest in any therapies that could help keep aging brains quick. With 78 million baby boomers beginning to hit their 60s, “there’s a big market for these sort of things.”
“What do older adults have? There really isn’t any medicine right now that prevents Alzheimer’s disease … so anything that can help people with their cognition can be of tremendous interest,” he said.
Still, experts caution there isn’t a lot of proven science behind much of this stuff yet.
The U.S. market for home computer software aimed at brain fitness grew to $225 million in revenues in 2007, according to a SharpBrains report, up from an estimated $100 million in 2005. The research and advisory firm forecasts the market burgeoning to $2 billion by 2015.
Rozelle’s “spa” uses a variety of tools, from high-tech reclining chairs that simultaneously stimulate several senses to a dark, quiet flotation tank that shuts out any stimulation. These mimic the stress-relaxation routines familiar to athletes. Along the wall in one room are computer stations with programs that call on a host of cognitive skills, like memory, computation, decision-making and critical thinking. In another room, a chair reclines to a zero-gravity position, thought to evenly distribute a person’s blood pressure and take stress off the spine.
The Neurobics Club is housed at Rozelle’s clinical practice, the Mind Spa. After an initial consultation to develop a tailored training plan, clients can buy a $50 monthly membership and have unlimited use of the equipment. Since it opened in 2007, about 50 people have joined.
Among them is Genie Hindall, 66, who joined after her husband starting having problems with his short-term memory and executive functions. Hindall wanted to take some preventive steps with her own mental acuity, saying: “I feel like I’m having to do a lot of thinking for two people now.”
About once a week, the former educator makes the 55-mile roundtrip from her Englewood home to downtown Sarasota, where the Mind Spa is in a single-level brick office building along with a neurologist’s clinic and endoscopy center.
Hindall sits in front of a computer for 45 minutes, doing exercises like trying to remember sequences of numbers seven long. She then lies down on the neurowave chair for half an hour. She dons goggles that emit flashes of colored lights and headphones that play soothing music, as the chair rotates in figure eights, rocking her into a meditative state.
“There’s a calmness and everything seems to go out of my mind,” Hindall says. “I just look at that as my quiet time.”
Medical authorities say consumers should be aware that many brain-fitness activities cannot promise specific results.
“For a lot of these things, there’s not a broad-based demonstration that they’ll work, there’s a more general: ‘Exercise is good,’” says Dr. Carl Eisdorfer, a geriatric psychiatrist who heads the University of Miami’s Center on Aging. Research into cognitive rehabilitation is just beginning, Eisdorfer adds.
“I think we’re at the point now where we have to be cautious about how we approach it and not oversell the idea,” he said.
Rozelle agrees that more research into mental fitness needs to be done, but says there’s enough evidence out there now to support what he’s doing with the Neurobics Club.
“It’s well accepted that to establish brain plasticity and brain fitness, it’s important to stimulate the brain in many and novel ways, because the brain gets lazy, but it responds to new stimulation.”
Loewenstein goes back to the gym analogy in assessing the benefit of a place like the Neurobics Club, saying: “Could it be helpful for some people? Absolutely, because some people could never exercise their brains,” just as others won’t do any activity unless they’re at a fitness club.
“But on the other hand, are you getting something here that you couldn’t get on your own and not pay money?”
___
On the Net:
Mind Spa, www.mind-spas.com
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
By RASHA MADKOUR
Associated Press Writer
SARASOTA, Fla. (AP) _ Seniors in this retirement hotspot diligently packed the local Y, sweating to keep their bodies in shape. But after their workout, several couldn’t remember where they put their car keys.
Watching this scenario unfold, neurotherapist George Rozelle thought: Wouldn’t it be great to have a health club where people could keep their brains fit? And so it was born: the Neurobics Club.
The center uses computer programs and other gadgets that stimulate the brain to help those who feel they aren’t as sharp as they used to be, or, as Rozelle puts it, people who are understressing their brains. Some doctors are skeptical about such programs’ benefit and cost, but Rozelle isn’t deterred.
“The fun part of this field is that it’s growing rapidly. There’s a lot of interest now in healthy aging,” Rozelle says. “The baby boomers are getting older and they’re not liking it.”
Dr. David Loewenstein, a University of Miami brain disorders researcher, said there’s much interest in any therapies that could help keep aging brains quick. With 78 million baby boomers beginning to hit their 60s, “there’s a big market for these sort of things.”
“What do older adults have? There really isn’t any medicine right now that prevents Alzheimer’s disease … so anything that can help people with their cognition can be of tremendous interest,” he said.
Still, experts caution there isn’t a lot of proven science behind much of this stuff yet.
The U.S. market for home computer software aimed at brain fitness grew to $225 million in revenues in 2007, according to a SharpBrains report, up from an estimated $100 million in 2005. The research and advisory firm forecasts the market burgeoning to $2 billion by 2015.
Rozelle’s “spa” uses a variety of tools, from high-tech reclining chairs that simultaneously stimulate several senses to a dark, quiet flotation tank that shuts out any stimulation. These mimic the stress-relaxation routines familiar to athletes. Along the wall in one room are computer stations with programs that call on a host of cognitive skills, like memory, computation, decision-making and critical thinking. In another room, a chair reclines to a zero-gravity position, thought to evenly distribute a person’s blood pressure and take stress off the spine.
The Neurobics Club is housed at Rozelle’s clinical practice, the Mind Spa. After an initial consultation to develop a tailored training plan, clients can buy a $50 monthly membership and have unlimited use of the equipment. Since it opened in 2007, about 50 people have joined.
Among them is Genie Hindall, 66, who joined after her husband starting having problems with his short-term memory and executive functions. Hindall wanted to take some preventive steps with her own mental acuity, saying: “I feel like I’m having to do a lot of thinking for two people now.”
About once a week, the former educator makes the 55-mile roundtrip from her Englewood home to downtown Sarasota, where the Mind Spa is in a single-level brick office building along with a neurologist’s clinic and endoscopy center.
Hindall sits in front of a computer for 45 minutes, doing exercises like trying to remember sequences of numbers seven long. She then lies down on the neurowave chair for half an hour. She dons goggles that emit flashes of colored lights and headphones that play soothing music, as the chair rotates in figure eights, rocking her into a meditative state.
“There’s a calmness and everything seems to go out of my mind,” Hindall says. “I just look at that as my quiet time.”
Medical authorities say consumers should be aware that many brain-fitness activities cannot promise specific results.
“For a lot of these things, there’s not a broad-based demonstration that they’ll work, there’s a more general: ‘Exercise is good,’” says Dr. Carl Eisdorfer, a geriatric psychiatrist who heads the University of Miami’s Center on Aging. Research into cognitive rehabilitation is just beginning, Eisdorfer adds.
“I think we’re at the point now where we have to be cautious about how we approach it and not oversell the idea,” he said.
Rozelle agrees that more research into mental fitness needs to be done, but says there’s enough evidence out there now to support what he’s doing with the Neurobics Club.
“It’s well accepted that to establish brain plasticity and brain fitness, it’s important to stimulate the brain in many and novel ways, because the brain gets lazy, but it responds to new stimulation.”
Loewenstein goes back to the gym analogy in assessing the benefit of a place like the Neurobics Club, saying: “Could it be helpful for some people? Absolutely, because some people could never exercise their brains,” just as others won’t do any activity unless they’re at a fitness club.
“But on the other hand, are you getting something here that you couldn’t get on your own and not pay money?”
___
On the Net:
Mind Spa, www.mind-spas.com
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
