Memory Loss Linked to Sleep Apnea

Author: Allie Montgomery

As we get older, we expect a certain amount of memory loss, but this can be compounded if suffering from sleep apnea. A recent study, conducted by the University of California, shows that people who suffer from sleep apnea show tissue loss in the part of the brain that helps store memory.

The principal investigator for the study, Ronald Harper, a professor of neurobiology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA has stated that the study findings "demonstrate that impaired breathing during sleep can lead to serious brain injury that disrupts memory and thinking." Patients that suffer from sleep apnea stop breathing during the night and wake up repeatedly, leading to chronic daytime fatigue and concentration and memory difficulties. Research has also linked this condition to an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes, and stroke.

In this study, the team used MRI to scan the brains of the patients with sleep apnea. The team focused on the brain structures called mammillary bodies that are located on the underside of the brain. They found that these bodies of the 43 patients were almost 20 percent smaller than those 66 patients that did not suffer from sleep apnea. The results of this study will be published in the June issue of the Neuroscience Letters.

Harper suggested that the continued drop in oxygen experienced by the patients might lead to brain injury. He also noted that the lack of oxygen during a sleep apnea episode could cause death to brain cells. "The reduced size of the mammillary bodies suggest that they've suffered a harmful event resulting in sizable cell loss. The fact that patients' memory problems continue despite treatment for their sleep disorder implies a long-lasting brain injury," he said.

The lead author on the study, Rajesh Kumar, an assistant researcher in neurology said that patients that suffer memory loss from other conditions such as Alzheimer's disease or alcoholism also show signs of shrunken mammillary bodies, so the finding from this particular study are very important. Physicians normally treat memory loss problems in patients that suffer from alcoholism with massive amounts of vitamin B1 or thiamine. They are suspecting that the doses given will help the dying brain cells to recover and enable the brain to use them again.

Harper and Kumar plan to study whether taking the supplemental B1 vitamin can help to restore the memory in patients with sleep apnea. The vitamin has been shown to move glucose into cells, which prevents the cells from dying from starvation of oxygen.