sleep tagged posts

Jason Gerstner, assistant research professor in WSU’s Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine, is lead author of a Science Advances paper describing a gene involved in the quality of sleep experienced by three different animals, including humans. Credit: Washington State University

Washington State University researchers have seen how a particular gene is involved in the quality of sleep experienced by 3 different animals, including humans. The gene and its function opens a new avenue for scientists exploring how sleep works and why animals need it so badly. As a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin, Gerstner looked at genes that change expression over the sleep-wake cycle and found expression of the gene FABP7 changed over the day throughout the brain of mice...

Overweight adults spend more of their sleep in REM stage than healthy weight adults do. An individual’s body composition and caloric intake can influence time spent in specific sleep stages, according to results of a new study from Perelman School of Med at PennU that will be presented at SLEEP 2016, 30th annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC.

In the study, 36 healthy adults experienced 2 consecutive nights of 10 hrs in bed per night at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.Polysomnography was recorded on the second night. Body composition and resting energy expenditure were assessed on the morning following the first night of sleep. Food/drink intake was measured each day.

The Penn team found that BMI, body fat percentage and resting energy expenditur...

REM sleep — the phase of night-time mammalian sleep physiology where dreams occur — has long fascinated scientists, clinicians, philosophers, and artists alike, but the identity of the neurons that control REM sleep, and its function in sleep have been controversial due to a lack of precise genetic methods to study the sleeping brain. (stock image) Credit: © asife / Fotolia

ID of the neurons that control REM sleep, and its function in sleep have been controversial due to a lack of precise genetic methods to study the sleeping brain. Now neuroscientists provide the first answers to both questions, identifying a neural circuit in the brain that regulates REM sleep, and showing that REM sleep controls the physiology of the other major sleep phase, called non-REM (NREM) sleep.

The study began...

A new study suggests that receiving rewards as you learn can help cement new facts and skills in your memory, particularly when combined with a daytime nap. The findings from the University of Geneva reveal that memories associated with a reward are preferentially reinforced by sleep. Even a short nap after a period of learning is beneficial.

“Rewards may act as a kind of tag, sealing information in the brain during learning,” says lead researcher Dr Kinga Igloi from the University of Geneva. “During sleep, that information is favourably consolidated over information associated with a low reward and is transferred to areas of the brain associated with long-term memory.”

“Our findings are relevant for understanding the devastating effects that lack of sleep can have on achievement,” s...