Unsynchronized Brain Waves During Sleep Make Us Forget

Likened to a tennis serve where the ball toss and the racket swing must coordinate
perfectly to score an ace, overnight brain waves must sync properly for remembering
to occur, a new study finds.  As with everything, it’s all about timing.  While slow
and fast brain waves are integrated and balanced in younger adults, when we age
slow waves that occur during non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep fail to fully
coordinate with quick electrical bursts known as spindles.

Using tennis terminology, the slow waves are like the toss of the ball, while the fast

waves are like the swing of the racket. If either of these two components are off in
terms of rhythm, the serve will either travel short or long in terms of distance, or go
out of bounds or the racket might even fail to make contact with the ball completely.
In sleep, this mistiming prevents older adults from being able to save new memories.  
These findings explain way older adults often seem able to better remember things
that occurred in the past rather than those that recently occurred.  The study also
suggests that this problem is the result of atrophy of the medial frontal cortex, an
area in the brain responsible for deep sleep which is restorative.  

The good news from this study is that there is now hope for a potential treatment
that could help with memory loss in aging adults.  New studies are being undertaken
to examine the effects of applying electrical stimulation to the frontal lobe of the
brain in an effort to synchronize slow waves with spindles   According to the studies
senior author Matthew Walker, “By electrically boosting these nighttime brainwaves,
we hope to restore some degree of healthy deep sleep in the elderly and those with
dementia, and in doing so, salvage aspects of their learning and memory,"

Source

Helfrich, R. F., Mander, B. A., Jagust, W. J., Knight, R. T. & Walker, M. P. (2017). Old Brains Come Uncoupled in Sleep:  Slow Wave - Spindle Synchrony, Brain Atrophy and Forgetting.. Neuron.  

Using Technology to Ease Aging Parent's Lonliness

More people are living longer lives than we have seen previously.  This is in part to do such factors as better knowledge about nutrition, improved medical treatment, increased physical activity and the overall awareness of health related factors.  Yet as people live longer they often become lonely and isolated, a widespread problem among seniors.  

Often there is the loss of a spouse, family members and good friends, the loss of abilities such as hearing or vision decline, or the ability to drive, less opportunities for social interactions and social events, and after retirement and children become adults with their own families, the loss of a goal or purpose in life.  Most seniors prefer to remain in their homes when possible.  

Overall, the aging senior often feels an absence of fun, excitement and connections with their family and peers.  All these factors can lead to increasing loneliness resulting in depression.  Relatives who live far away may want to help but just don’t know how.

Consider teaching your relative to use technology as a means of maintaining connections.  A computer with a camera can form an instant connection to anyone in the family (albeit that means there may be added pressure on you to look well groomed which non-video communication doesn’t require!) Even someone who has never touched a computer before can learn if they’re willing.  

For one of my parents anniversaries my brothers and I bought them a very simple machine that was just for email.  My father couldn’t use it due to his arthritis and my mother, who was in her 80’s at the time,  announced she would never touch the thing and we needed to take it back.  

One of my brothers set it up anyway and we just left it there for a day or so.  My mom called just wondering how hard it was to operate, not that she intended to do so of course.  We just had a general discussion about how easy it was which I kept short then shifted topic to her grandchildren.  Next she called one of my brothers for a similar purpose and he took it to the next level encouraging her and convincing her she’d have no trouble learning to use it.  Another day or two went by and my mom called my other brother and asked him to come over and just show her how to use it so she could see how it worked.  The final step was when my niece went over and went through everything with her step by step.  

The next thing we knew, emails were flying fast and furiously, to the point we at times regretted the gift.  This was largely due to the fact that while she learned how to email she didn’t appreciate that when an email arrived somewhere this didn’t set off an alarm where we were or send some sort of nanobot out to find us, retrieve us and make use sit and write her back (this was before the ease of mobile technology).  

It also didn’t cross her mind that any of us were doing anything at the time and might not be able to get back to her ASAP.  So she would email one child and upon not receiving an immediate response call one of the other children to say how worried she was having them call child number one.  She then emailed child number three since she’d just spoken to child number two and as, in the meantime she had received a reply from errant child number one, upon not receiving a reply from child number three called child number one about number three.

This went on in various combinations through the day and it never completely abated though the calls stopped and she just used guilt if you didn’t reply immediately.  Now my mother is the queen of the “i”  -  iphone, ipad, ipod with every other computer based item known to mankind.  She is far better with computers than I am and despite explaining I don’t have an “i”anything, is horrified I don’t “do facetime”.  

My mom was never tech savvy at all. Nor did she have any interests to become tech savvy.   Yet when she learned she could keep in touch with her family using it she was completely on board and did what it took to learn how to operate it.  Some people may assume that seniors aren’t capable of accomplishing things in which they don’t engage.  Yet  it may be more a matter of whether something benefits them than ability.  

If you can show them how technology can get them something they want such as feeling more connected to friends and family and  feeling less lonely and isolated then you may find they are quite adept at learning the needed skills.  Just beware.  Once the genie is out of the bottle you can’t force him back in and I guarantee he will be visiting you frequently with emails, techs and requests for facetime!

New Study Shows Cannabis Reverses Aging in the Brain

In a monumental new study, conducted through a joint effort at the University of Bonn with researchers from The Hebrew University, Cannabis was shown to reverse aging processes in the brains of mice.  Old animals that showed memory loss and other brain related problems due to age were given low doses of Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the active ingredient of Cannabis.  The treated mice were shown to regress to a state that would be seen in two month old mice.

In this study, aging mice aged 12 and 18 months old were given a low daily dose of (THC).  After only four weeks, the treated mice displayed behavioral signs indicating a reversal of aging related cognitive impairments including learning and memory and learning difficulties.  When examining the brain tissue of treated mice on a genetic level, they determined the behavioral changes reflected real neurological changes at a molecular level.  Conversely, the mice who received placebos continued to display age related declines in performance reflecting the normal aging process.

Human trials are not yet in the works, as more animal studies need to be done to determine safety of long term use of the agent and potential undiscovered side effects. Additionally given the low dose used for this study, it appears using Cannabis for recreation will not improve memory.  At the same time earlier studies have demonstrated that cannabis is effective at decreasing brain inflammation while improving cognition and can help to control chronic pain.

While human trials may be a long time in coming, the findings from this study may bring us one step closer to understanding and treating normal and abnormal aging related changes to the brain. Subsequent research could eventually open up a range of new options for treating and possibly reversing brain aging in humans.  Should support be found for the use of the active agent in Cannabis for aging related memory problems, it could provide hope for those suffering from dementia, most cases of which are currently progressive and irreversible.  The study is published in the May issue of Nature Medicine.