No All Nighters

Staying up late studying for a test may not hurt because memories can still form in the hippocampus, but pulling all-nighters may ultimately hurt your performance on final exams.

"In terms of forming those memories of facts you are trying to cram, that happens in the hippocampus," Stickgold says. "The first recording in the hippocampus is very fast and reliable. But if you don't get sleep afterward, you may not get the memories into the neocortex."

Diarra K. Lamar '01, a cognitive neuroscience concentrator in Lowell House, say he knows lack of sleep can get in the way of memory, but he's not overly concerned.

"I know that an all-nighter hurts recall," he says. "But I don't feel hindered. There were times when I had a lot of information, so I slept to help retrieval."

Lamar says he has averaged between four and five hours of sleep per night during the term.

David S. Rosenthal '59, director of University Health Services, says that he recommends at least six hours of sleep per night and that lack of sleep is a problem for undergraduates, but is especially a problem for graduate students.

"We see depression, difficulty with grades, difficulty with completing work, and disorientation," he says.