A recent study conducted by the US researchers revealed that sleep apnea can have serious effect on person’s memory.

The researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) have discovered that people with disruptive sleep apnea suffer tissue loss in brain areas that help store memory.

In a prepared statement, principal investigator Ronald Harper, a professor of neurobiology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, said, “Our findings demonstrate that impaired breathing during sleep can lead to serious brain injury that disrupts memory and thinking.”

The study researchers reported that sleep apnea patients stop breathing when asleep, and they wake up continually during the night to breathe and take oxygen. Breathing disruption occurs as throat, velum and tongue muscles relax, narrow the way for air to get inside. That’s why the patients never sleep well and are sleepy during morning and have difficulty with remembering things and concentration.

Previous studies have linked sleep apnea to an increased risk of stroke, heart disease and diabetes.

In this study, the UCLA group did MRI scans for tissues called mammillary bodies, located on the underside of the brain.

The researchers found that the mammillary bodies of the 43 disease sufferers were almost 20% smaller as compared to those in 66 people without sleep apnea.

The study results will be published in the June 27 issue of ‘Neuroscience Letters.’

Repeated drops in oxygen experienced by sleep apnea patients may lead to brain injury, Harper suggested. He noted that lack of oxygen during an apnea episode can cause brain cell death.

Mr. Harper Said, “The reduced size of the mammillary bodies suggests 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.”

Lead author Rajesh Kumar, an assistant researcher in neurobiology, said, “The findings are important, because patients suffering from memory loss from other syndromes, such as alcoholism or Alzheimer’s disease, also show shrunken mammillary bodies.”

“Physicians treat memory loss in alcoholic patients with massive amounts of thiamine, or vitamin B1. We suspect that the dose helps dying cells to recover, enabling the brain to use them again,” Mr. Kumar said.

Mr. Kumar and Harper have also decided to analyze whether consuming supplemental vitamin B1 can help restore memory in sleep apnea patients. The vitamin moves glucose into cells that prevent their death from oxygen starvation.