Alzheimer's Disease Treatment & Cure: Extra Sleep Can Help Improve Memory

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Scientists were able to find that extra sleep can improve memory, using fly models to make the experiment. The right kind of sleep might be able to improve Alzheimer's symptoms.

According to the research published in the journal Current Biology, extra sleep can restore the memory of a group of specimen flies used in the research, regardless of what method was used to put the flies to sleep.

The research team headed by Paul Shaw of the University School of Medicine in Washington used three groups of fruit flies that were modified to be able to simulate different memory problems, but primarily tied to the inability to create new memories, according to Medical News Today.

Among the flies used in the experiment, one group was modified to simulate the memory condition that is similar to Alzheimer's, and the other two were induced to have similar memory problems but one could not establish connections and the other group with too many memory connections. The scientists then used three different methods to put the flies to sleep.

"In all of these flies, the lost or disabled gene still does not work properly," according to Stephanie Dissel, lead author of the study and senior scientist in Shaw's laboratory. "Sleep can't bring that missing gene back, but it finds ways to work around the physiological problem."

Regardless of how extra sleep was achieved among the flies, extra sleep can enable the flies to create new memories. The scientists were able to find that a rough equivalent of 3-4 hours is enough to improve the cognitive function of the flies.

"Our data showed that extra sleep can handle any of these problems. It has to be the right kind of sleep, and we're not sure how to induce this kind of slumber in the human brain yet, but our research suggests that if we can learn how, it could have significant therapeutic potential," according to Shaw.

Though the scientists are unsure of their findings regarding memory and sleep, they believe that supplementary sleep can improve the connections in the brain cells that are responsible for storing important memories.

Further research may be needed to find the link between problems with memory and sleep. According to American Live Wire, these findings could open up new opportunities and research for new treatment strategies for memory or neurological conditions such as Alzheimer's disease.