CAUTION: NEURONS AT REST Is Your Brain Asleep While You're Awake? If you think you can function on minimal sleep, here’s a wake-up call: Parts of your brain may doze off even if you’re totally awake. Sleep deprivation can do strange things 0 a brin— including putting it on autopilot without your knowledge. In a recent study, scientists observed the electrical activity of brains in rats forced co TRUTH: THE MAIN SYMPTOM OF FATAL FAMILIAL INSOMNIA (FFI) IS THE INABILITY TO SLEEP, WHICH RESULTS IN EVENTUAL DEATH. ONLY 40 FAMILIES INTHE WORLD ARE KNOWN TO CARRY THE GENE FOR THE DISEASE. stay up longer than usual. Problem- solving brain regions fell into a kind of “local sleep"—a condition likely in sleep-deprived humans too, the study authors say. Surprisingly, when sections of the rats brainsentered these sleeplike states, “y couldnt tell chat [the rats were] in any way in a different state of wakefulness,” said study co-author Giulio Tononi, a neuroscientist at the University of Wis- consin, Madison. Despite these periods of local sleep, overall brain activity—and the rats’ behaviors—suggested the animals were fully awake, ‘This phenomenon of local sleep is “not just an interesting observa- tion of unknown significance,” Tononi said. It “actually affects behavior—you make a mistake.” For example, when the scientists had the rats perform a 62+ NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TALES OF THE WEIRDchallenging task—using their paws to reach sugar pellets—the sleep- “What good does it deprived animals had trouble com- do to try to educate pleting ic. 7 .+.80 early in the Sleep Allows morning? You can be Neurons to giving the most... Reset? interesting lectures Tononi and his colleagues recorded to sleep-deprived the electrical activity of lab rats via electroencephalogram (EEG) : : sensors connected co the rodents! morning or right heads. after lunch ...and the kids early in the 7 pr edd when the rats bi overwhelming drive awake, their neutons—nerve cells Iming that collect and transmit signals | to Sleep replaces any in the brain—fired frequently and irregularly. When the animals slept, their neurons fired less often, usually in chance of alertness, cognition, memory, or understanding.” James B. Maas, Ph.D. sleep expert a regular up-and-down pattern that manifests on the EEG as a “slow wave.” Called non-rapid eye move- ment, this sleep stage accounts for about 80 percent of all sleep in both rats and people. “The researchers used toys to distract the rats into staying awake for a few hours—normally “rats take lots of siestas,” Tononi noted. The team discov- cred that neurons in two sections of these overtired rats’ cerebral comtexes entered a slow-wave stage that is essentially sleep. Why Do We Sleep? Iesunknown why parts ofan awake brain nod off, though itmay havesomething to do with why mammals sleep—still an open question, said ‘Tononi, whose seudy appeared in the journal Nature, According to one leading theory, since neurons are constantly “recording” new information, at some point the neurons need to “tum off” in order to reset themselves and prepare to learn again. “If this hypothesis is correct, that means that at some point [if youre putting off sleep] you're beginning to overwhelm your neurons—you are 63+ THE BODY HUMANreaching the limit of how much input they can get.” So the neurons “take the rest, even if they shouldn't” —and there's a price to pay in terms of mak- ing “stupid” errors, he said Even “Alert” People Make Mistakes Sleep deprivation may have dangerous consequences, Tononi said—and those mistakes may become more common, For one, many people are getting fewer Zs. In 2008, about 29 percent of U.S. adults reported sleeping fewer than seven hours per night, and 50 to 70 million had chronic sleep and wake- TRUTH s fulness disorders, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Preven- STAYING AWAKE FOR 24 tion, Adults generally need about seven HOURS IMPAIRS HAND- eee the National Sleep Foundation. TO-EYE COORDINATION What's more, you don't need to feel sleepy to screw up, Tononi emphasized. AS MUCH AS HAVING A "Byen iFyou may Sed thatyoue!ficand moopacovot | fel os CONTENT OF 0.1%. jours of sleep ada according to ... and those are the ones that make judgments and decisions.” i 64+ NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TALES 0F THE WEIRDBraun, David, ed. Tales of the Weird: Unbelievable True Stories. Washington, DC: National Geographic Society, 2012. National Geographic Virtual Library. Web. 20 Oct. 2015. URL http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/kK6F34