0W -W ,f 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 -s .- tak Thi wa rup har RE - ies sle 30 eac fur thr con tak to I hel thi nig for off tins sle tur sou slef 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.