Lack of sleep distorts memories, according to the results of a study published in the journal Science. Indeed, a brain deprived of rest would even tend to modify memory and invent new memories.
Researchers at Michigan State University and University of California Irvine wanted to understand the factors that affect the memory and which encourage the creation of false memories.
They examined the relationship between short- and medium-term sleep duration and total deprivation of rest on cognitive functions, especially memory and false memories.
The volunteers must have watched the film of a burglary. Scientists analyzed how they reconstructed these images after sleep deprivation.
The researchers found that it was enough to decrease the length of rest by 5 hours per day for the brain to modify the information of the burglary and create false memories.
“Sleep deprivation slows down the formation of new dendrites, the gateways to neurons that process and relay information from one neuron to another, yet this formation of new dendrites is associated with learning and brain plasticity, ”explains Steven J. Frenda, of the psychology department at the University of California Irvine.
False memories but also chronic diseases
The sleeping troublestoday affect 20% of the population of industrialized countries. In France, one in three people say they suffer from a sleep disorder and 15% say they regularly experience insomnia problems. They are responsible for a lot of health problems, heart attacks and must be considered a public health epidemic. Sleep deficiency can be responsible for car accidents, industrial disasters, metabolic disorders, and heart problems. In addition, people who lack sleep have a higher risk of developing chronic diseases like hypertension, diabetes, depression, obesity and cancer. They also experience increased mortality.
