sleep tagged posts

Simulated effects of microgravity significantly affect rhythmicity and sleep in humans, a new study from the University of Surrey finds. Such disturbances could negatively affect the physiology and performance of astronauts in space.

Previous findings have shown that astronauts exposed to microgravity, simulated via 60 days of constant bed rest at a six-degree head-down tilt angle, experience changes to physiology, including immune suppression, increased inflammation, and reduced muscle mass and bone density. However, a less-studied aspect of physiology concerning the effects of microgravity is sleep and biological rhythms.

Lead author Dr María-Ángeles Bonmatí-Carrión, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Surrey (currently at CIBERFES (Carlos III Health Institute), Un...

A new review of research evidence has explored the key differences in how women and men sleep, variations in their body clocks, and how this affects their metabolism.

Published in Sleep Medicine Reviews, the paper highlights the crucial role sex plays in understanding these factors and suggests a person’s biological sex should be considered when treating sleep, circadian rhythm and metabolic disorders.

Differences in sleep

The review found women rate their sleep quality lower than men’s and report more fluctuations in their quality of sleep, corresponding to changes throughout the menstrual cycle.

“Lower sleep quality is associated with anxiety and depressive disorders, which are twice as common in women as in men,” says Dr Sarah L...

Researchers have found that brain cell activity during sleep is responsible for propelling fluid into, through and out of the brain, cleaning it of debris. Findings could lead to new approaches for Alzheimer’s, other neurological conditions.

There lies a paradox in sleep. Its apparent tranquility juxtaposes with the brain’s bustling activity. The night is still, but the brain is far from dormant. During sleep, brain cells produce bursts of electrical pulses that cumulate into rhythmic waves — a sign of heightened brain cell function.

But why is the brain active when we a...

What role do the stages of sleep play in forming memories? “We’ve known for a long time that useful learning happens during sleep,” says University of Pennsylvania neuroscientist Anna Schapiro. “You encode new experiences while you’re awake, you go to sleep, and when you wake up your memory has somehow been transformed.”

Yet precisely how new experiences get processed during sleep has remained mostly a mystery. Using a neural network computational model they built, Schapiro, Penn Ph.D. student Dhairyya Singh, and Princeton University’s Kenneth Norman now have new insight into the process.

In research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they show that as the brain cycles through slow-wave and rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep, which happens about five t...