Are you asleep? Or are you awake? Or- are you both?

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So, many of you know that I sleep 3 hours a night.  No, I don’t sleep during the day.  (OK, put me in a boring lecture and I am out faster than you can say “boo”.)  And, there was a recent Wall Street Journal article that made me feel better.  Dr. Chris Jones of the University of Utah (and Dr. Fu of UC San Francisco) have been running a study (actually checking folks genetic code)  about folks who thrive on 3 hours of sleep. The problem is that while many people think they need little sleep- but only 5% of those who do so think, really meet this criterion.  It turns out only a select few (elite?) can survive healthily on such a regimen, about 1-3% of the total population.  The short-sleepers are night owls and early birds.  (Yes, they, like I, burn the candle at both ends.) We short-sleepers are also energetic, outgoing, optimistic and ambitious. (I clearly include myself in this “elite” group.)  Moreover, this practice (habit?) starts when we are kids and runs in families.  (Until my dad was dying, he was like that.  My grandmother as well.)

Now, along comes a group of researchers, under the direction of Dr. Guilio Tononi (University of Wisconsin , who  reported (both in Nature1 (Local sleep in awake rats) and in Neuron2 (Regional Slow Waves and Spindles in Human Sleep ) a different aspect of inadequate sleep periods.  These researchers kept rats awake four hours past their bed times. (How did they know that ??? Did the rats stop watching tv?)  The sleep-deprived rats turned their brains off.  One neuron at a time.  Yet, they were still awake.  (OMG, Zombie rats!)  The worst part of this process is that the neurons that were deactivated were the ones most useful for wakeful activities.See the neurons firing!

A little background may be useful, here.  We do know that some sleep is useful.  (I am not going to spend hours here debating the way folks have determined how much sleep is necessary, but I clearly believe the process has been biased.  Making folks stay in dark rooms and seeing how long they sleep after a week or so of this torture is NOT among the ways I would consider a viable approach.  You bore me, I sleep.  You keep me interested, I am up.  What does that prove?)  We can clearly see sleep patterns in the brain: slow-wave activity is visible as the cortical neurons go electrically silent.  When we are awake those neurons are flourishing with electrical activity.  (These patterns are seen on an electroencephalogram (EEG).)  When we sleep, our neurons oscillate between ‘on’ (electrical activity, as if awake) and  ‘off’  (cessation of electrical activity, and when the EEG displays high-amplitude slow waves).

This phenomenon is distinct from another sleep deprivation pattern, which is termed “microsleep”.  In that aspect, the individual instantaneously closes its eyes and ceases to respond to any stimuli.  (The brain clearly exhibits sleep-like brain wave patterns.) The phenomenon lasts for 3 to 15 seconds.  Since the rats were only kept up for four more hours, they did not qualify as sleep-deprived.  (I repeat my comments above- how did they know?)

No one will be trying these experiments on humans any time soon, since it requires the insertion of electrodes into the brain.  These microwire arrays were implanted in the frontal and parietal cortex, which provides much more detailed information than the EEG monitor (and displays only global neuronal activity).  The actual performance of individual neurons could be observed with the arrays.  One of the interesting findings from this research was that slow-wave activity (indicating sleep) can be extremely local.  The researchers also found that intracerebral communication is probably inhibited during sleep, since the oscillations occur out of phase from one another (usually) in the various regions of the brain.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v472/n7344/extref/nature10009-s3.mov

Notice that the rat tries- twice- to garner the sugar pellet and fails! The rat is clearly awake.

The researchers feel that the progressively increasing neural turn-off is what led to the poorer test performances (reaching for a sugar pellet in their cages) by the rats.  It may explain poor decision making, as people tire; it may also explain the phenomenon of sleep-walking.  The research also suggests that when we first awake, we may have most of our neurons firing off and we can perform ideally.  As we stay awake, our neurons trail off and our performance goes into the toilet.  I buy this aspect:  It is exactly how I know when it is time for me to call it a night (o.k., sometimes a morning).

 

There were two sets of teams.  Dr. Tononi is the lead author for both papers.
  1. with Drs. Vyazovskiy, Hanlon, Nir, and Cirelli at Wisconsin and Dr. Olcese of the Perceptual Robotics Laboratory [Pisa, Italy]
  2. with Drs. Vyazovskiy, Nir, and Cirelli at Wisconsin, and Dr. Staba (UCLA), Dr. Andrillon (Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris), and Dr. Fried (Tel Aviv Medical Center)
NOTE:  The second article on sleep is scheduled for posting on Wednesday (tomorrow will be one on management).
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4 thoughts on “Are you asleep? Or are you awake? Or- are you both?”

  1. Hi Roy,

    Any posts on sleep always interest me. I couldn’t imagine surviving on 3 hours of sleep a day. I am grumpy with 6 hours of sleep – imagine 3!

    I love the humor you brought to this post as to how they would know it’s 4 hours past the rats bedtime. I have to admit that I also work best in the mornings. In the evenings, I am slower but lately, I have not been sleeping as much and blame it on blogging. In the afternoons, whenever possible, I take power naps or even better real naps LOL.
    Diana Simon recently posted..Interview with Traffic Generation Blogging Contest Winner – Brankica Underwood

    1. Hi, Diana:
      Thanks for your comments. It’s important to know your peak times, to optimize your ability to get things done. I have a sinusoidal pattern (with about 4 maxima a day) and try to cater my efforts to employ the peaks and valleys appropriately.
      There is an optimum time for a power nap, as well! It depends upon how fast you fall asleep, and then you can determine how much time to allot (time to sleep + 15/20 minutes [dependent upon you cycle]).
      Take care.
      Roy

  2. Hi Roy
    I also believe in the hours for sleep and I have an interesting even to support.

    Long back I was working on an important project (before PC debuted) and worked on Tandy from Radio Shack. The computer broke down and I had to retype the stuff and I was on for 4 days/nights. I was hunting my bed to drop down. At the same instant, I got to know of an Instrumental/Vocal overnight festival at the University. Though I was tired, I attended and did not miss a second of it. Next day I bathed and attended office and never felt the need for “sleep”.
    I feel it is your mindset, how you look at it. Even Thomas Alva Edison slept for only 4 hours and I think we can learn from him.
    I am an night owl and feel my peak comes at midnight, but I make it a point to sleep by 3, so that before 3:45 I am already dead. As per Hindu mythology, the last period starts at 3:30 and (thieves prefer this period, between 3:30 and 5, where we have fastest sleep, without dreams). Also it has the highest energy (coughing almost starts in-between this period).
    Glad to see your site. Keep up the good work.

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