Don't sleep at the wheel!
From lack of sleep, neurons become "sleepy"
Anna Kerman, XX2 century, according to Medical News Today: To the brain, sleep deprivation is 'like drinking too much'
The consequences of sleep deprivation can be catastrophic. For example, when a driver is tired, his attention is scattered, because the neurons do not respond to the stimuli of the surrounding world as effectively as they should.
A new study has confirmed that a lack of night sleep can indeed negatively affect the functioning of the brain, and the consequences of this influence on everyday life may be unsafe.
The work carried out by the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, together with colleagues from Tel Aviv University, confirmed that people in a state of sleep deprivation suffer from memory lapses and visual perception disorders. The fact is that lack of sleep disrupts communication between neurons.
"We found that by not giving the body enough sleep, we also deprive neurons of the ability to function normally. This opens the way to cognitive impairment. We begin to perceive the world around us differently and react to it," says the lead author of the study, Dr. Itzhak Fried.
The results of the study are published in Nature Medicine (Nir et al., Selective neuronal lapses precede human cognitive lapses following sleep deprivation).
"Sluggish" neurons communicate inefficiently
The scientists worked with 12 people suffering from epilepsy. All the study participants were patients of the David Geffen Medical School. All volunteers had electrodes implanted in their brains, which recorded the location of brain regions associated with seizures. These electrodes were intended for examination of patients before future surgery.
It turned out that seizures can, among other things, be caused by lack of sleep. This statement was confirmed in an experiment: participants were not allowed to sleep until they had an attack, thanks to which scientists were able to register the electrical activity of the brain.
As part of the experiment, participants were also asked to complete categorization tasks. During the exercise, the volunteers had to distribute the images into different categories as quickly as possible. While the volunteers were sorting the cards, the researchers tracked the electrical activity of the brain. The researchers found that the more sleepy and tired the study participants were, the more difficult they performed tasks, and the slower the images were sorted.
"We were surprised to see how sleep deprivation slows down the activity of brain cells," explains lead author Dr. Yuval Nir. He noted that against the background of lack of sleep, neurons become "sluggish" and intercellular communication is disrupted. If brain cells usually reacted instantly, then after a sleepless night they responded to stimuli slowly, and the transmission of information took longer than usual. This influenced the processes of encoding information and the processes of turning visual stimuli into conscious images. This was reflected in the nature of brain waves – they also became "slow".
The authors of the new work refer to a number of existing studies that have demonstrated that the consequences of sleep deprivation can be catastrophic.
For example, when a driver is tired, his attention is scattered, because the neurons do not respond to the stimuli of the surrounding world as effectively as they should.
The researchers insist that sleep deprivation should be taken much more seriously by the public than it is now. She's really dangerous. Dr. Fried even compared lack of sleep to alcohol abuse. According to the scientist, appropriate measures should be taken against driving in a tired state.
"Lack of sleep has about the same effect on the brain as alcohol abuse,– says Dr. Fried. "But so far there are no standards or tests that would allow to identify drivers who are too tired, as it is now being done with drunk drivers."
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