14 DAY TRIAL // Investigators at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UWM) say that their latest study indicates the brains of teens may be permanently barred from growing new synapses if the adolescents do not sleep enough each night.
In other words, their brain development ceases if they owe too many so-called sleep debts. The research highlights the need for parents to become more actively involved in monitoring their children's sleeping patterns, in order to avoid any problems.
The new investigation was carried out exclusively on mouse models, but the research team explains that its conclusions are also applicable on humans due to the vast similarities between our brains and the tiny rodents'.
After depriving mice of sleep in patterns similar to modern-day teens' general sleep hours, the UWM experts discovered that new synapse formation was stifled after too much sleep was lost. Synapses are the connections between neurons, where electrical signals pass from one nerve cell to the other.
In more recent time, investigators around the world have begun paying special attention to the way people sleep, since they suspect a connection between these patterns and the development of mental health disorders such as schizophrenia, PsychCentral reports.
“One possible implication of our study is that if you lose too much sleep during adolescence, especially chronically, there may be lasting consequences in terms of the wiring of the brain,” team leader Dr. Chiara Cirelli explains.
“Adolescence is a sensitive period of development during which the brain changes dramatically,” she adds, reminding that most cases of schizophrenia appear during these years. Details of the research were published in the latest advanced online issue of the top scientific journal Nature Neuroscience.
The brain development process involves “a massive remodeling of nerve circuits, with many new synapses formed and then eliminated,” she adds. If teens' sleeping patterns interfere with there activities, then the consequences may remain with them throughout their lifetimes.
“The time spent asleep or awake affects how many synapses are being formed or removed in the adolescent brain. The important next question is what happens with chronic sleep restriction, a condition that many adolescents are often experiencing,” Cirelli adds.
“It could be that the changes are benign, temporary and reversible, or there could be lasting consequences for brain maturation and functioning,” she concludes.