14 DAY TRIAL // According to the conclusions of a new study from Swedish researchers at the University of Uppsala, even a single night of lost sleep can increase blood concentrations of chemicals associated with brain tissue loss. This is one of the first studies ever to show how lack of sleep promotes neural degeneration.
In an experiment conducted on 15 healthy male participants, researchers deprived test subjects of sleep for one night, and allowed them to sleep for 8 hours on another night. When they were sleep deprived, participants exhibited elevated levels of the NSE and S-100B molecules in their bloodstreams the following morning.
These chemicals are associated with neurodegenerative processes, and appear in the blood when brain damage occurs. One of the most important conclusions of this study is that a full night of sleep may do wonders for maintaining the health of the human brain, PsychCentral reports.
“We observed that a night of total sleep loss was followed by increased blood concentrations of NSE and S-100B,” explains the leader of the study, researcher Christian Benedict, PhD, who holds an appointment with the Department of Neuroscience at the university. Details of the study were published in a recent issue of the journal SLEEP.