UC Science Today

Poor sleep – specifically the deep slumber needed to restore memories – has been linked to a toxic build-up of beta-amyloid, the protein believed to trigger Alzheimer’s disease. Neuroscientist Bryce Mander, who co-led this University of California, Berkeley study, explains.

"So sleep actually not only helps preserve memory, but it actually also helps remove toxins from the brain and one of those toxins happens to be beta amyloid. We don’t think that this is the only reason that those toxins are associated with Alzheimer’s relating to memory impairment; we just think this is a new mechanism by which those toxins affect memory and an important one because we can actually do something about it potentially, which is get more sleep or use devices to enhance sleep or basically promote exercise in older people who are at risk for Alzheimer’s so that they get deeper sleep because exercise promotes more deep sleep."

The team has received a major National Institutes of Health grant to further test their hypothesis that sleep is an early warning sign or biomarker of Alzheimer’s.

Poor sleep – specifically the deep slumber needed to restore memories – has been linked to a toxic build-up of beta-amyloid, the protein believed to trigger Alzheimer’s disease. Neuroscientist Bryce Mander, who co-led this University of California, Berkeley study, explains.

"So sleep actually not only helps preserve memory, but it actually also helps remove toxins from the brain and one of those toxins happens to be beta amyloid. We don’t think that this is the only reason that those toxins are associated with Alzheimer’s relating to memory impairment; we just think this is a new mechanism by which those toxins affect memory and an important one because we can actually do something about it potentially, which is get more sleep or use devices to enhance sleep or basically promote exercise in older people who are at risk for Alzheimer’s so that they get deeper sleep because exercise promotes more deep sleep."

The team has received a major National Institutes of Health grant to further test their hypothesis that sleep is an early warning sign or biomarker of Alzheimer’s.

Poor sleep – specifically the deep slumber needed to restore memories – has been linked to a toxic build-up of beta-amyloid, the protein believed to trigger Alzheimer’s disease. Neuroscientist Bryce Mander, who co-led this University of California, Berkeley study, explains.

"So sleep actually not only helps preserve memory, but it actually also helps remove toxins from the brain and one of those toxins happens to be beta amyloid. We don’t think that this is the only reason that those toxins are associated with Alzheimer’s relating to memory impairment; we just think this is a new mechanism by which those toxins affect memory and an important one because we can actually do something about it potentially, which is get more sleep or use devices to enhance sleep or basically promote exercise in older people who are at risk for Alzheimer’s so that they get deeper sleep because exercise promotes more deep sleep."

The team has received a major National Institutes of Health grant to further test their hypothesis that sleep is an early warning sign or biomarker of Alzheimer’s.

When you simply reach for glass of water, it’s actually not so ‘simple’ – there’s a lot of coordination going on between your visual cortex, brain and motor skills. But it all happens so fast, it seems like an involuntary movement that doesn’t involve actual planning by the brain. Understanding how the brain plans for such ‘goal-directed’ action is what interests graduate student Deborah Barany of the University of California, Santa Barbara.

"What are the brain maps that are involved during planning reaches or different complex skills? We use both functional imaging and structural imaging to really be able to understand the brain dynamics and structural changes that underlie both normal actions, as well as neurological disorders of movements or concussions, things like that – what’s going on in the brain."

Barany hopes their research may someday advance neural prosthetics.

"By looking at human behavior and human movement with an FMRI and these other techniques, we’re able to parse out the information that might be useful to use in this neural decoding."

When you simply reach for glass of water, it’s actually not so ‘simple’ – there’s a lot of coordination going on between your visual cortex, brain and motor skills. But it all happens so fast, it seems like an involuntary movement that doesn’t involve actual planning by the brain. Understanding how the brain plans for such ‘goal-directed’ action is what interests graduate student Deborah Barany of the University of California, Santa Barbara.

"What are the brain maps that are involved during planning reaches or different complex skills? We use both functional imaging and structural imaging to really be able to understand the brain dynamics and structural changes that underlie both normal actions, as well as neurological disorders of movements or concussions, things like that – what’s going on in the brain."

Barany hopes their research may someday advance neural prosthetics.

"By looking at human behavior and human movement with an FMRI and these other techniques, we’re able to parse out the information that might be useful to use in this neural decoding."

When you simply reach for glass of water, it’s actually not so ‘simple’ – there’s a lot of coordination going on between your visual cortex, brain and motor skills. But it all happens so fast, it seems like an involuntary movement that doesn’t involve actual planning by the brain. Understanding how the brain plans for such ‘goal-directed’ action is what interests graduate student Deborah Barany of the University of California, Santa Barbara.

"What are the brain maps that are involved during planning reaches or different complex skills? We use both functional imaging and structural imaging to really be able to understand the brain dynamics and structural changes that underlie both normal actions, as well as neurological disorders of movements or concussions, things like that – what’s going on in the brain."

Barany hopes their research may someday advance neural prosthetics.

"By looking at human behavior and human movement with an FMRI and these other techniques, we’re able to parse out the information that might be useful to use in this neural decoding."

It used to be thought that all germs and microbes in the gut were bad for us. Trying to eliminate such microbes with disinfectants and antibiotics over the years led to the ‘hygiene hypothesis’, which states that a lack of early childhood exposure to germs, microorganisms and even dirt, can suppress the natural development of the immune system.

"There does seem to be a consistent benefit of being exposed to a more diverse microbial community, regardless of the source of that diversity."

That’s Rob Knight of the University of California, San Diego. He’s one of the world’s leading experts in microbiome research.

"Many different studies linking microbes to health have found that if you have a low diversity microbial community in your gut, you’re more at risk for a range of different diseases. That doesn’t necessarily mean that having a high diversity community is good, but it does point to an association between microbial diversity. And so the goal of a lot of studies going forward is to figure out, if you do something that increases the diversity of microbes, will that have a health benefit?"

It used to be thought that all germs and microbes in the gut were bad for us. Trying to eliminate such microbes with disinfectants and antibiotics over the years led to the ‘hygiene hypothesis’, which states that a lack of early childhood exposure to germs, microorganisms and even dirt, can suppress the natural development of the immune system.

"There does seem to be a consistent benefit of being exposed to a more diverse microbial community, regardless of the source of that diversity."

That’s Rob Knight of the University of California, San Diego. He’s one of the world’s leading experts in microbiome research.

"Many different studies linking microbes to health have found that if you have a low diversity microbial community in your gut, you’re more at risk for a range of different diseases. That doesn’t necessarily mean that having a high diversity community is good, but it does point to an association between microbial diversity. And so the goal of a lot of studies going forward is to figure out, if you do something that increases the diversity of microbes, will that have a health benefit?"

It used to be thought that all germs and microbes in the gut were bad for us. Trying to eliminate such microbes with disinfectants and antibiotics over the years led to the ‘hygiene hypothesis’, which states that a lack of early childhood exposure to germs, microorganisms and even dirt, can suppress the natural development of the immune system.

"There does seem to be a consistent benefit of being exposed to a more diverse microbial community, regardless of the source of that diversity."

That’s Rob Knight of the University of California, San Diego. He’s one of the world’s leading experts in microbiome research.

"Many different studies linking microbes to health have found that if you have a low diversity microbial community in your gut, you’re more at risk for a range of different diseases. That doesn’t necessarily mean that having a high diversity community is good, but it does point to an association between microbial diversity. And so the goal of a lot of studies going forward is to figure out, if you do something that increases the diversity of microbes, will that have a health benefit?"

Have you ever wondered about the amazing variety of human faces? And why this variety is far greater than that of most other animals? According to behavioral ecologist Michael Sheehan of the University of California, Berkeley, our highly visual social interactions are one of the main drivers of this evolutionary trend of individually unique faces.

"Recognition is a really important part of our social lives, so therefore there may have been selection for individuals to be more recognizable and make recognition a little bit easier."

The researchers used a U.S. Army database of body measurements and found that, as predicted, facial traits are much more variable than other parts of the body, like the length of the hand, and that facial traits are independent of other facial traits, unlike most body measures.

"And this would be one way to create lots of different variation in the overall phenotype and make individuals more distinctive. So one thing I think this research highlights is an interesting question for people to begin pursuing further about the importance of identity in different types of contexts, what is the benefit of being individual and distinctive under different situations."