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Wednesday, Novernber 13, 2013 // The Statement 7B
The history they hold
by Sam Gringlas
science of it all: sleep on it by paige pearcy
I always start off the semes- integrate learning into existing nov
ter with good intentions: I'll get memories and better understand slei
eight hours of sleep every night what it encountered. Even more too
and go to bed at 11 p.m. But, as my interestingly, a study conducted 7
workload grows and my procras- by Northwestern University and ord
tination follows, sleep is the first published in Nature Neurosci- bes
thing I sacrifice. Sound famil- ence used that idea of memory alrE
iar? For many students, myself consolidation and found that you stu
U RiV L Y included, pulling all-nighters or can actually learn in your sleep Nei
nearly all-nighters is a semester if you're listening to the material re-
rituai- It's epttinr to be that time durin r sumbcier makinf a H"i
i LU. 1,gCL1 gOU ULL1
in the semester we love to hate:
the end, and with that, those
luxurious hours we spend dosing
in bed become the easiest thing to
replace when we need more time
for more studying. So we stay in
the UGLi all
night.
Like food
and water,
sleep is one of C
the essentials, oa
according to
doctors, scien-
tists, profes-
sors - anyone
who wants
you to survive.
We're told =
that without
sleep, we'll get
sick or be slower or be more apt to
make mistakes. But do we really
need to sleep every night?
Until recently there wasn't a
lot of understanding about sleep
except that without it things went
wrong. Some neuroscientists
argue that most damage caused
through sleep deprivation could
be reversed with, well, sleeping.
But, what the brain experiences
during sleep that rejuvenates the
body is difficult to decipher. More
recently it was found that dur-
ing sleep, memory consolidation
occurs, which helps strengthen
something learned or experienced
through unconscious processing.
It's like giving your brain time to
g y 118V~ 111C, 11K g i
new argument for getting your
eight hours every night. Remem-
ber those times when you wished
you could just go to sleep, wake
up and know the material for your
exam? This study proved that may
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w the research suggests that
ep can act as a reinforcing agent
There's a catch, though: In
der for this to be effective,
ides the material having
eady been experienced, another
dy also published in Nature
,roscience showed that the
activation of the memories (the
tening of the material) needs to
e place during slow-wave sleep.
us if one wakes up during slow-
ve sleep, the process is inter-
ted and learning is actually
rmed. Slow-wave sleep is non-
M sleep that occurs throughout
the sleep
cycle, but
more often
r at the begin-
ping of a
night of sleep.
Interestingly,
elderly people
have less
slow-wave
sleep, which
could explain
their memory
a.-loss.
GAS MULHOLLAND The stud-
also show that the initial
ep needs to take place within
hours of the learning, and that
ch subsequent night of sleep
rther reinforces the memories
ough the general memory
nsolidation process. Thus,
ing a night off from the UGLi
hit the hay might be more
pful to your studies than you
nk. Instead of staying up all
ht to re-read notes and cram
an exam, you may be better
recording your notes, hit-
g repeat on your speakers and
eping for the night in a lec-
e-induced slumber. It might
nd crazy, but any excuse to
ep is OK in my book.
ILLUSTRATION BY MEGAN MULHOLLAND
actually work.
In the study, the researchers
taught participants two different
musical melodies and then had
them take naps. While napping,
the researchers played one of the
melodies and found that once the
participants were awake, they
could play the tune they had heard
while asleep with fewer mistakes
- they knew it better. However,
it's important to note that for the
improvement to learning to be
actualized, the sleeper needs to
be consolidating already learned
material. It's like re-reading your
notes over and over again, after
you read it the first time, each
time after is a reinforcement. And
n my parent's kitchen, a glossy
Kodak print appeared on the
counter sometime last year.
In the photograph, my six-year old
cheeks are chubby and rose-colored.
Gleaming, my grandpas have made a
semi-successful attempt to pull me
onto their laps, leaving my corduroy-
clad legs dangling just above the
ground.
Now, more than a decade has passed
since a yellow drugstore disposable
camera first held this motion still. Both
of my grandpas looked younger then.
Outside the frames on a 35 mm reel,
pasts don't stand so static.
In the popular imagination,
grandfathers are often depicted as
keepers of history. Seated in worn,
leather armchairs, grandfathers
recount the olden days before roaring
fires as curious youngsters lean close,
hanging on every word.
My grandpas don't fit that image.
My paternal grandfather, Sol, stared
up at the gates at Auschwitz when he
was younger than me. His stories are
veiled under sprinkles of Yiddish and
an accent that at 90 still won't let go.
And if you ever see Martin, my
mom's dad, he probably won't hesitate
to joke around a bit. That's because
Martin is by no means the stuffy
armchair and cigar grandfather. He's a
boxer and spends a good portion of the
day pacing his yard with a well-loved
hedge trimmer.
But if grandfathers are supposed
to be the torchbearers of history, I
was confused about what that history
might say.
Sol, whose Auschwitz number,
B-4907, I had traced with my fingers
for years, was forgetting fast. Of
course, the images of bodies and smoke
and fire cannot be un-etched. But from
the time I interviewed him for an
eighth grade project to last year, when
I decided to record his history on tape,
his memories have lost their vividness.
At least in articulating them, his
once clearer images are now jumbled
and vague. In aging, stories were
lost, misplaced somewhere in the five
decades since Poland.
And while Sol struggled to piece
together the chronology, Martin's past
was becoming even more real.
In 2006, Martin was diagnosed
with Parkinson's disease. Dopamine-
producin cells bean to die offleading
to shaking and difficulty performing
certain motor skills.
On a drug called Aricept, often
prescribed to Parkinson's patients, my
Grandpa Martin's memories became
more vivid than they had ever been.
He dreams every night now of
his parents, his childhood in the
Berkshires and being behind the
counter at his father's hardware store.
Most of the memories are happy. But in
the quiet moments, Martin's past - his
people, his childhood - are dug up and
presented before him everyday.
In the last few years, he's gotten
up a few times to write things down,
afraid his life is an unwritten memoir
that might disappear. He's also taken
to collecting clocks. Dozens of them
crowd my grandma's piano, at times
ticking all at once.
While Grandpa Sol forgot, Grandpa
Martin couldn't help but remember.
As my grandpas age, I have started
to think about my own past. Of
course, mine has been short thus far. I
certainly haven't faced the destruction
of the Holocaust or 70 years worth of
living.
But as my life trucks ahead, I wonder
how I will eventually confront my own
history.
I have loved the past since I first
arranged museum exhibits in my room,
forcing my sister to brave my tours of
coins and stamps and broken shells. In
my painted-blue room, I had the power
to arrange the past just how I wanted.
But now, as one grandpa forgets and
the other remembers, I wonder how
much agency we have in arranging
our own histories. Is it impossible to
remember what I want and to forgot
what hurts the most?
In observing my grandpas confront
their pasts in vastly different ways,
it's become clear I might not have too
much choice in the memories I choose
to retain or discard.
What I have found is a complicated
picture about how memory works.
I'm no expert on how neurons fire or
how the temporal lobe decides wharfo
keep or let slip away. But as a journalist
and a student of history, I have learned
pasts are deeply complicated.
My grandpas have taught me the
ways we process them are, too.
Sam Gringlas is a Daily StaffReporter
and LSA sophomore.