A new study shows that continuous sleep loss may destroy brain cells.
The study, performed on mice, was published in the Journal of Neuroscience this week, and is the first to show that sleep deprivation, only in animals, can lead to irreversible brain cell damage, according to Forbes.
Sigrid Veasey, associate professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine, and researchers from the Center of Sleep and Circadian Neurobiology at the University of Pennsylvania discovered that prolonged wakefulness damages locus ceruleus (LC) neurons. LCs are brain cells that help keep people awake and attentive, Forbes reported.
"We now have evidence that sleep loss can lead to irreversible injury," said Veasey, the lead author of the study. "This might be in a simple animal but this suggests to us that we are going to have to look very carefully in humans."
Researchers found that losing sleep resulted in 25 percent of certain brain cells in mice dying, the Times of India reported. The study also criticizes the idea that catching up on sleep makes up for sleep lost. Getting extra sleep on the weekends is a common strategy used among students, shift workers and truckers. The research shows that losing sleep is a bigger issue than previously believed.
"In general, we've always assumed full recovery of cognition following short-and long-term sleep loss," Veasey said. "But some of the research in humans has shown that attention span and several other aspects of cognition may not normalize even with three days of recovery sleep, raising the question of lasting injury in the brain. We wanted to figure out exactly whether chronic sleep loss injures neurons, whether the injury is reversible and which neurons are involved."
Shifting bed time hours and lack of sleep has also been stated to result in problems in over 1,000 genes, including those that must repair and protect the body, the Times of India reported.
Despite finding the harm that sleep deprivation causes, the researchers also discovered that a protein called sirtuin type 3 (SirT3) protects LCs from sleep lose, Forbes reported. The discovery can lead to creating treatments for boosting SirT3 production and keep brain cells safe.
