And here we thought cats were lazy. They were just being Geniuses. Why? Read-on:
Results of the study by UPenn will probably strike sheer-terror into the hearts of late-shift-workers, college-students, Zach Braffs, and new-parents alike.
Their CSCN team decided to test what it’s like for the Brain after an All-Nighter or going past your natural bedtime due to a late-shift job.
And One thing they found was: Your brain is OK at recovering after a little missed-sleep-cycle on a [very] short-term basis.
HOWEVER, The Other Thing they found was: Your brain is Unlikely to recover [-ever] from repeated sleep-deficits, especially if your cycle is exaggerated instead of just moved earlier or later.
The catchphrase used was, “Extended Wakefulness”.
Wait, it gets Worse:
Not only did they find that the Awareness Zone of your brain called the LC (or Locus Coeruleus) was unlikely to be protected by the helpful protein (SIRT-3) that usually steps-in at only the First Incident of sleep-loss.
They found that in the test-animals, [ahem] TWENTY-FIVE (25) PERCENT of the neurons in that region –Died.
-And they could not be Regenerated or “Fixed”;
Even with 3 Days of Catch-Up Sleep.
Now for the nitpickings:
Neither the Abstract or the other Articles on this study mention Exactly How Many Hours they considered for their “Extended-Wakefulness” term.
They also didn’t say How Many Days they kept the mice up in “Extended-Wakefulness”. -One might assume it was 5, because that’s what a work-week is, but no say in Abstract.
It also calls the study-subjects “Wild-Type Mice”.
-There may be an outside-chance of some adaptations that Humans have evolved over the years, as opposed to these mice, which may never have had an odd day in their entire evolution.
Further Out:
Though the study Focused on the LC, because that’s where Alertness lives. The researchers did not rule-out ANY BRAIN REGION as potentially being un-damaged by the ravages of chronic-sleep-loss.
Veasey also notes that damage created in One region of the brain, through One mechanism -May Also Set The Stage or Accelerate other diseases associated with brain-damage & malfunction; -Like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
The only hope we have is that human-adaptation, genetic-variation, shifting time-frames and maybe things like Blackout-Curtains can help us avoid some of this potential damage.
-That, and the fact that biochemists already understand how to Over-Express the protein SIRT-3.
And that’s important because sometime in the future, there might be a “Hangover-Helper”-type pill to help gird your brain against a mistake or two in your sleep-practices.
Maybe it already exists and we call it “Melatonin”? Or “Ambien”?
-Or even “Coffee”.
The only thing left for the project is to procure some deceased, shift-working/sleep-deprived actual humans and have the Zombies Doctors cut up their brains and eat them study their LCs to see if there really is no mitigating system in place for us.
But until that day, GET YOUR Z’s!!! Because it’s looking like chronic sleep-problems are a Lot more serious than we once thought.
Check out the Links for the rest of the Details:
Photo Credits:
“Cat”, by Martin Boose, promicabana.de
“Zombie Girl”, by Mislav Marohnić
Scumbag Brain Meme, by KnowYourMeme user ivanp
Links:
• Source: UPenn-News
• via: Slashdot
• More Coverage: CNN
• Source Study:JNeuroscience-Extended Wakefulness: Compromised Metabolics in and Degeneration of Locus Coeruleus Neurons
[Comment Redacted. -Mgmt] Why you wrote such […] ? “Unlikely to recover [-ever] from repeated sleep-deficits” first there some studies showing that L-C neurons can regenerate. “Neither the Abstract or the other Articles on this study mention” “They also didn’t say How Many Days ” […]
“he researchers limited the test mice to four to five hours of sleep over each 24-hour time period. After just three days of sleep deprivation”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/melaniehaiken/2014/03/20/lack-of-sleep-kills-brain-cells-new-study-suggests/
“Her team kept them awake during eight hours of their usual sleep time by stroking them gently and adding interesting toys to their cages. The mice were then allowed to sleep, but they only made up about four of the hours they lost. Veasey said this is typical of human shift workers’ experience.”
http://articles.philly.com/2014-03-24/news/48494991_1_mice-sleep-problems-enough-sleep
this study have some flaws for example they asume mice sleep 8 hours but they need 13 h so human must be sleep 2 hours to get the same amount of sleep deprivation
“Their CSCN team decided to test what it’s like for the Brain after an All-Nighter or going past your natural bedtime due to a late-shift job.Their CSCN team decided to test what it’s like for the Brain after an All-Nighter or going past your natural bedtime due to a late-shift job.” no like title say they test extended wakefulness many people wiht night shift sleep only 4 hours (but not all) that why they use this patterns, In concusion […] some neurons
As a matter of Policy: Please keep all comments on-topic and all critique positive and constructive.
First, good links! Thank you.
Second, If I read-into what you are outlining here, by “How Long”, I meant duration in overall span-of-days, ie: INTER-day or even Weekly schedule. Not INTRA-day hourly schedule over the course of One single day.
That Forbes link is pretty good, and if they’re right about the total # days, even better. Note also, that the Penn page says, “other aspects of cognition may not normalize even with three days of recovery sleep”, so that number 3 might also be a mis-read by Forbes.
Note that the sources I found, including the page at Penn themselves, did not outline exactly how many days-in-a-row the mice were kept up. (unfortunately, full-text source-study access is out-of-budget for now)
*Relevance to an actual human’s working-schedule and possible recovery-window is the key target there. Ex: Long-haul truckers, Google employees pulling all-nighters, college-students, etc.
Good note on mouse sleep-cycles, also.
If you do have evidence to contrary studies of regenerating LC neurons after similar injury, that sounds awesome.
I’d Love to see a positive counterpoint to this recent one by Penn that seems so pessimistic.
You should also send your thoughts and data to Penn study-leader Sigrid Veasey, MD so she can see for herself.
Now you can for free take this paper and they wrote that rats sleep 3 hours per 24h 3 day. About LC I found studies showing growth cone LC regeneration and authors hypothesised than LC are cabable to regeneration not only axons but also dendrites and maybe even soma. [ed: redacted]
Here study about sleep loss http://www.jneurosci.org/content/34/12/4418.full.pdf#page=1&view=FitH
““other aspects of cognition may not normalize even with three days of recovery sleep”” I forgot about that yes but they give 3 days after six days sleep deprivation, people lose 12 hours of sleep and can catch up only 6 (also some studies shows sleeping more than 9h :they sleep 10 in recovery period: can also decrease cognition.) author also pointed that more time is needed to see full recover. “Does this mean a sleep debt can never be paid back? Not at all, said study author Alexandros Vgontzas, director of the sleep research and treatment center at Penn State University. But it may take longer to settle up and restore the brain to full function than previously believed.”
Great follow-up on the details.
This is really encouraging, as I’m sure every non-rodent human reading the story was hoping eventual recovery is possible.
I hope for all our sakes that Alex is right. He should ping Sigrid at Penn.
::fingers-crossed::