Chronic Jet Lag And Memory Issues Linked
Chronic jet lag alters the brain in ways that cause memory and learning problems long after returning to a regular 24-hour schedule, according to research by Berkeley psychologists. Twice a week for four weeks, the researchers subjected female Syrian hamsters to six-hour time shifts, the equivalent of a New York-to-Paris airplane flight. During the last two weeks of jet lag and a month after recovery from it, the hamsters' performance on learning and memory tasks was measured. As expected, during the jet lag period, the hamsters had trouble learning simple tasks that the hamsters in the control group did well on. What surprised the researchers was that these deficits persisted for a month after the hamsters returned to a normal day-night schedule. read more