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"If you&amp;#39;ve munched on popcorn while watching Netflix before bed or hit the fridge after waking up in the middle of the night, you&amp;#39;re certainly not alone, but you might be impeding your memory, according to a new study from the University of California, Los Angeles.\nOur circadian rhythms affect when we&amp;#39;re hungry in addition to our sleep cycles, the authors explain, so our bodies expect us to eat at typical meal times. To see what might happen when we don&amp;#39;t, the researchers fed mice during hours when they normally sleep (during the day, since they&amp;#39;re nocturnal) and tested their memories.\nPinterestFacebookThe abnormal eating schedule threw off the rhythm of activity in the mice&amp;#39;s hippocampus (the brain region responsible for memory), decreased expression of pCREB and tCREB (proteins involved in memory formation), reduced long-term potentiation (the strengthening of connections between brain cells thought to form memories), and impaired ability to remember objects and fearful circumstances. The new feeding routine also altered their sleeping habits, causing them to nap equally during the day and night.\n&amp;quot;By simply adjusting the time of food access, we demonstrated that we can alter the cognitive performance of mice. We do not know yet if this equally applies to humans but shift work has been associated with decreased performance on cognitive tests,&amp;quot; the authors point out, suggesting that the cognitive impairments they found resulted from disrupted sleep patterns.\nObviously, this doesn&amp;#39;t change how hard it is to doze off when your stomach is growling. But these results indicate that eating at a consistent time might be easier on your sleep cycle and your brain."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/story/late-night-snacking-memory>