'Lack of sleep leads to memory loss'

'Lack of sleep leads to memory loss'

Avoiding sleep to stay up all night and study for exams can actually lead to memory loss, it has been claimed.

Without sleep people can experience a negative impact on memory capacity, the University of California, Los Angeles reports.

Dr Gina Poe, a professor of anesthesiology at the University of Michigan, said that if a student didn't get enough sleep, information they were revising at the last minute would not "stick" in their mind.

She also commented that rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is needed for memory recall as "sleep loss affects reconsolidation".

"When you're reviewing material, you take it off of your memory shelf, dust it off and then reshelve it. But when you have had no sleep, you don't put the information back in the right spot – it's disorganised," Dr Poe added.

The BBC says that sleep is important for the development of the brain as it helps maintain skills such as speech, memory, innovative and flexible thinking.

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