But when sleep is interrupted frequently–as it is in a wide range of disorders, including sleep apnea, alcoholism and Alzheimer’s disease–the ability to learn new things can be dramatically impaired, says a new studyconducted on mice and published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The researchers used a novel method to isolate the effects of sleep fragmentation from overall sleep quality. Studies to date have shown that when sleep is frequently interrupted, memory suffers. But no one really knew whether the memory problems they observed were the result of shorter cumulative sleep times, poor overall sleep quality, the degradation of some distinct part of the sleep cycle, or the sheer annoyance of being prodded awake repeatedly while sleeping. This study suggests that even when frequent waking doesn’t affect sleep quality and doesn’t cut into overall sleep time, memory takes a hit.
Read a summary of the study here: http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jul/26/news/la-heb-sleep-memory-learning-20110726
It's Interesting 