Lack of sleep can have more serious consequences than previously thought. A new study has shown that excessive wakefulness can cause serious brain cell loss.
Experimental mice that lacked sleep like people leading a modern lifestyle (long work, midnight sitting at a computer), as a result, lost 25 percent of brain cells, according to an article published in The Journal of Neuroscience. American scientists believe that this rule also applies to people, so all attempts to catch up on sleep have been in vain. At the same time, they cherish the hope that one day they will succeed in developing a medicine to protect the brain from lack of sleep, according to the British BBC news channel.
A team of scientists from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine investigated brain cells that control danger. A few days of sleep deprivation, which is similar to three night shifts with 4-5 hours of sleep per day in humans, rodents have lost 25 percent of the cells in the brainstem. According to the researchers, this is the first evidence that a lack of sleep can kill brain cells.
But in order to make sure that this rule is applied to a person, additional research will be required. In the long run, scientists do not exclude the possibility of creating a mechanism for protecting brain cells that could speed up the natural processes involved in organizing sleep.
Skeptics say that experiments with animals can produce completely different results in humans. They believe that daily biorhythms and sleep periods should also be taken into account.
The article is based on materials .
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