The Learning Brain, Vol. 6, No. 8, August 2003 Performance/Assessment: Does Snoring Affect Academic Performance? by Michael Dabney. Sleep is necessary for planting long term memory, so any disruption of sleep, especially snoring, can create learning problems for children. In studies from the University of Louisville, children aged 5-7 who snored “…performed significantly worse on tests of attention, language abilities and overall intelligence.” Seventh and eighth-graders who were low performers academically, reportedly were more apt to be sufferers of frequent and intense snoring during early childhood. A study of third grade children (Urschitz et al., 2003) correlated poor academic performance in science, spelling and math with “…habitual snoring…”

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 15:4, pp. 508-522. Feedback in Hypothesis Testing: An ERP Study, by D. Papo, Pierre-Marie Baudonniere, Laurent Huguevillel, and Jean-Paul Caverni.This group of researchers used event-related potentials to study effects of feedback in the testing of a hypothesis, both cognitive and emotive. Using college students, it was noted that “…differences exist between responses to positive and negative feedback at all cortical sites.” The article, lengthy and technical, is a fascinating look at the properties of feedback, the types that exist, and the feedback deficits in depression.

The Learning Brain, Vol. 6, No. 8, August 2003 Environment: Second-Hand Smoke Impairs Cognition, by Michael Dabney. Dabney claims that second-hand smoke is damaging to children – causing the production of cotinene in the bodies of children exposed to environmental smoke. Data from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and Medical Center shows that “…smoke exposure affected the reasoning skill scores…negatively affected verbal IQ, performance IQ and full scale IQ…” in children between nine and twelve years of age (Motluk, 2002). In addition, exposure to cigarette smoke may reduce folate in a child’s body, needed to fight disease and instrumental in fetal development.

Good news includes the fact that research indicates that Vitamin C supplements protect the body against some potential damage from second-hand smoke, and parents who quit smoking before their children enter 3rd grade can reduce the likelihood of that child himself smoking by the 12th grade.

Learning – Memory, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, Volume 10, Number 4, July/August 2003
Sleep and the Time Course of Motor Skill Learning, by Matthew P. Walker, Tiffany Brakefield, Joshua Seidman, Alexandra Morgan, J. Allan Hobson, and Robert Stickgold, pp.275-284. In procedural memory, research shows that formation of memory varies with the amount of training during initial task acquisition, but that consolidation of the memory continues during periods of sleep – not wakefulness- for improvement following task acquisition. Whereas disruption of REM sleep prevents overnight performance gains of newly acquired skills, sleep that combines Stage III Slow Wave sleep and NREM Stage IV sleep along with REM sleep best enhances memory acquisition.

Interestingly, subjects in the research showed no improvement in the skill speed or efficiency following acquisition when followed by 12 hours of wakefulness. However, when a night’s sleep followed the training, the subjects averaged a 20% improvement – but did not continue to significantly gain additional learning after a period of 12 hours of wakefulness. When sleep followed training during the day, similar improvements “…to those achieved following nocturnal sleep…” occurred.

The amount of overnight improvement coming from Stage III, IV and REM sleep did not differ after one or two trainings, however additional nights of post training sleep did bring additional benefits in learning the skill. Sleep the first night following training resulted in the greatest benefit, but additional nights of sleep also produced continued gains – although more modest. The act of rehearsal alone and the passage of wake time alone did not improve speed of the skill – indicating that it was the periods of sleep that maintained and enhanced skill learning.

There appears, therefore, to be two stages to motor-skill learning: one is practice-dependent learning during hours of wakefulness (fast and requiring task performance), and one without “task engagement,” during periods of sleep. The importance of sleep to student achievement seems to be growing ever more apparent in research.

Science News, August 9, 2003, p. 93. Naps with stages spark learning. In research done at Harvard University, naps consisting of both slow wave sleep and REM sleep improve task performance, with 90 minute daytime naps increasing task speed as efficiently as a full night’s sleep. Those subjects who took naps improved skill performance when the task was repeated after a nap, while those without naps saw their skill performance decline later in the same day. The napping subjects remained superior in the skill performance after both groups experienced a full night’s sleep.

The Learning Brain, Vol. 6, No. 8, August 2003 Behavior: Adolescents and Addiction, By Jennifer Decker Arevalo. This short article reiterates the difficulties adolescents have in planning, controlling impulses, and reasoning – and how that contributes to poor judgment and risky behavior. Arevalo goes on, however, to quote the 2003 work of Chambers in saying that increased frontal lobe activity predisposes teens to addictions more than other age groups – in that the development of an addiction and the permanency of such addictions might be greater. The AMA also reports that teens consuming alcohol suffer a “…greater impact on their developing brain…” and that this damage might be long term.

Interesting also is the articles citing of a three-year study reported at the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse Conference that females might be more prone to addiction to drugs than males of the same age. Caffeine consumption at an early age among females also correlates to higher than normal use of alcohol. The report did say that teenage girls use drugs, alcohol and cigarettes at a rate close to that of teenage boys.