Lack of adequate sleep exerts a similar influence on our brain as drinking too much, a study has found.<\/p>\n
Sleep deprivation disrupts the brain cells\u2019 ability to communicate with each other, leading to mental lapses that affect memory and visual perception, according to the study published in the journal Nature Medicine.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe discovered that starving the body of sleep also robs neurons of the ability to function properly,\u201d said Itzhak Fried, from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in the US. \u201cThis paves the way for cognitive lapses in how we perceive and react to the world around us,\u201d said Fried.<\/p>\n
\u201cSevere fatigue exerts a similar influence on the brain to drinking too much. Yet no legal or medical standards exist for identifying overtired drivers on the road the same way we target drunk drivers,\u201d said Fried.<\/p>\n
Researchers tested 12 epileptic patients who had electrodes implanted in their brains in order to pinpoint the origin of their seizures prior to surgery. The team asked the patients to categorise a variety of images as fast as possible while their electrodes recorded the firing of nearly 1,500 single brain cells across the group in real time.<\/p>\n
The scientists zeroed in on the temporal lobe, which regulates visual perception and memory. \u201cWe were fascinated to observe how sleep deprivation dampened brain cell activity,\u201d said lead author of the study Yuval Nir, from the Tel-Aviv University in Israel.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnlike the usual rapid reaction, the neurons responded slowly, fired more weakly and their transmissions dragged on longer than usual,\u201d said Nir. Lack of sleep interfered with the neurons\u2019 ability to encode information and translate visual input into conscious thought. The same phenomenon can occur when a sleep-deprived driver notices a pedestrian stepping in front of his car.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe very act of seeing the pedestrian slows down in the driver\u2019s over-tired brain,\u201d he noted. \u201cIt takes longer for his brain to register what he is perceiving,\u201d Nir said. The researchers also discovered that slow brain waves accompanied sluggish cellular activity in the same regions of the patients\u2019 brains.<\/p>\n
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Lack of adequate sleep exerts a similar influence on our brain as drinking too much, a study has found. Sleep deprivation disrupts the brain cells\u2019 ability to communicate with each other, leading to mental lapses that affect memory and visual perception, according to the study published in the journal Nature Medicine. \u201cWe discovered that starving […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9666,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[239],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9665"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9667,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9665\/revisions\/9667"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}