Posted on 01/13/2023 2:22:08 PM PST by ConservativeMind
Students sometimes pull an all-nighter to prepare for an exam. However, research has shown that sleep deprivation is bad for your memory. Now, neuroscientist Robbert Havekes discovered that what you learn while being sleep deprived is not necessarily lost, it is just difficult to recall.
Together with his team, he has found a way to make this "hidden knowledge" accessible again days after studying while sleep-deprived using optogenetic approaches, and the human-approved asthma drug roflumilast.
His team examined whether amnesia as a result of sleep deprivation was a direct result of information loss, or merely caused by difficulties retrieving information.
"Sleep deprivation undermines memory processes, but every student knows that an answer that eluded them during the exam might pop up hours afterwards. In that case, the information was, in fact, stored in the brain, but just difficult to retrieve."
The molecular pathway set off during the reactivation is also targeted by the drug roflumilast, which is used by patients with asthma or COPD.
Havekes says, "When we gave mice that were trained while being sleep deprived roflumilast just before the second test, they remembered, exactly as happened with the direct stimulation of the neurons." As roflumilast is already clinically approved for use in humans, and is known to enter the brain, these findings open up avenues to test whether it can be applied to restore access to 'lost' memories in humans.
"It might be possible to stimulate the memory accessibility in people with age-induced memory problems or early-stage Alzheimer's disease with roflumilast," says Havekes. "And maybe we could reactivate specific memories to make them permanently retrievable again."
If a subject's neurons are stimulated with the drug while they try and "relive" a memory, or revise information for an exam, this information might be reconsolidated more firmly in the brain.
(Excerpt) Read more at medicalxpress.com ...
How do they know that? Did they interview the mice?
Interesting. Thanks.
was reading drugs.com on this. The other anti-inflammatory drugs that are similar are:
Related/similar drugs
prednisone, Symbicort, Ventolin, Breo Ellipta, Ventolin HFA, Spiriva, Xopenex
Discoveries like this is why Hillary just has people killed.
I know what ROFLMA means but I've had trouble interpreting this. I did figure out this far but can you help with the rest? "Rolling on the floor until my intestines lose all ..."?
How do they know? Did the rats tell them about there past activities?
Better send in the FBI, the mice aren’t talkin!!
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