Sleepless nights can cause dark circles and anxiety, but now researchers at the University of California Berkeley have found that lack of sleep can cause memory-robbing proteins to build up in the brain. These type of proteins could build up in the long-term and trigger Alzheimer’s disease, say scientists.

“The more beta-amyloid you have in certain parts of your brain, the less deep sleep you get and, consequently, the worse your memory,” says neuroscience professor Matthew Walker. “Additionally, the less deep sleep you have, the less effective you are at clearing out this bad protein. It’s a vicious cycle.”

The study examined 26 healthy adults aged from 65 to 81 years that showed no evidence of dementia or other neurodegenerative, sleep or psychiatric disorders. They received scans to measure the amount of beta-amyloid in their brains. Following this they were asked to memorize 120 words and were tested on this. They slept for eight hours while their brains were being scanned and they recalled the remaining word pairs.

The doctors are confident that they have found a new pathway linking Alzheimer’s disease to memory loss, an important one as something can be done about it.