Health Personal Measures

Being awake for long hours increases the inability of human brain to absorb any more and a sound sleep of many hours will refresh the ability further. Every one of us encounters this experience many times during life. But it is for the first time that systematic scientific explanation of this phenomenon has been made available by the researchers at the ‘University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health’.

This new research supports the basic principle that establishes a key role of sleep in the brain’s ability of changing the responses according to the environment. Scientists call this ability as the “plasticity” of the brain. This plasticity of the brain is at the heart of human learning.
Scientists observed that the plasticity of brain depends upon the synapses, the nerve cell connections. These connections remain strong when we are awake and become week when we sleep.”People sleep so that their synapses can downsize and prepare for a new day and the next round of learning and synaptic strengthening”, say experts.

A normal human brain spends 80% energy on synaptic activity. It keeps on adding and strengthening synapses while responding to all stimulations. Human brain contains millions of neurons and each one neuron has thousands of synapses. The energy thus becomes “huge and can’t be sustained”, says Chiara Cirelli, the lead researcher.

An off-line period is must to bring synapses down when we are not exposed to the environment. If we do not sleep the brain will attain a saturation point where the energy level will be down and the brain’s ability to learn will also go down. “That is why we sleep”, explains Chiara Cirelli.

Molecular and electro-physical studies conducted on rats helped scientists to evaluate the “synaptic potentiation”. Study of sleeping and waking time represents the strengthening and weakening. Scientists also observed the brain slices and their movements for measuring the number of specific receptors.

Analysis of the results obtained indicated that with an increase in the synaptic activity, more glutamatergic receptors enter the synapse making it big and strong. Scientists were surprised to note that there was a 50% increase in the receptors after wakeful interval in comparison to the ones who were asleep.

Molecular examination of receptors undergoing ‘phosphorylation’ revealed that these levels were much higher while awakened. Experiments with other enzymes also yielded same results with synaptic potentiation.

Evaluation of electrical signals reflecting synaptic changes and measuring the “evoked response” resulted in to an almost ECG like output. For the same levels of stimulation, Responses were stronger following a long period of waking and weaker after sleep for equal stimulations. This indicates the more strengthening of synapses.
The study concludes that our brain system becomes positively stronger during wakefulness and a good sleep rejuvenates them to a sustainable baseline.

Chiara Cirelli says, “We believe that learning occurs only when we are awake, and sleep’s main function is to keep our brains and all its synapses lean and efficient”.

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