A group of experts conducted an experiment with mice in which they made an important discovery about the brain.
Once again, the Paris 2024 Olympic Games have been the talk of the town. An image of Italian swimmer Thomas Ceccon, winner of the 100-meter backstroke, went viral while he was taking a nap in a park in ParisThis was due to the poor conditions of the rooms in the Olympic Village. “There is no air conditioning, it is hot, the food is bad”the athlete declared.
Sleep is essential for mental and physical health. In this sense, British and Swedish researchers carried out an experiment to understand How our neurons work when we are sleeping and how they can be affected if we cannot get to sleep.
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How much sleep should humans get, according to science?
Although the hours we sleep vary depending on each person’s lifestyle, the National Sleep Foundation, an American research institute, provided these recommendations:
- Newborns (0-3 months): Ideally, they should sleep between 14-17 hours a day, although 11-13 hours is also acceptable. Sleeping more than 18 hours is not recommended.
- Babies (4-11 months): It is recommended that they sleep between 12-15 hours. It is also acceptable for them to rest between 11 and 13 hours, but never more than 16 or 18 hours.
- Toddlers (1-2): It is not recommended that they sleep less than 9 hours and more than 15 or 16. It is recommended that they rest between 11 and 14 hours.
- Preschoolers (3-5): 10-13 hours would be appropriate. Experts consider that less than 7 and more than 12 would not be advisable.
- School-age children (6-13): It is recommended to sleep between 9 and 11 hours.
- Teenagers (14-17): Sleep range increased by one hour to 10.08 hours (previously it was between 8.5 and 9.5)
- Younger adults (18 to 25): between 7-9 hours a day, and no less than 6 and no more than 10-11.
- Adults (26-64): The ideal would be to sleep between 7 and 9 hours, although this is not always achieved.
- Seniors (65 years and older): It is healthy to rest between 7-8 hours a day.
What happens to neurons if we sleep less?
Seth Grant, neuroscientist at the University of Edinburgh and led the study published in Current BiologyThis consisted of following the sleep period of some mice and paying special attention to the synapses, that is, the form of communication and connection between neurons, which are then transformed into signals that travel through the nervous system.
In this sense, together with his colleagues modified mice to produce Fluorescent versions of two well-studied proteinss that occur in synapses, called PSD95 and SAP102They then took images of the brains of the study subjects and classified the synapses into three types, depending on whether they had one or both of these proteins.
In this way and calculating other variables such as the size and structure of each synapse, they arrived at the number of 37 different subtypes of synapsesFrom this, they decided to investigate how synapses change with sleep deprivation.
They compared mice that had slept normally with those that had been kept awake for several hours. The result is extremely interesting, since, Although the number of synapses did not change in number, it did decrease in variety. in animals that did not get enough sleep. It was mainly noticed in two areas of the brain associated with learning and memory: the cortex and the hippocampus. This means that the number of synapses that recycled proteins rapidly decreased, while those that recycled proteins slowly increased.
Source: Ambito
I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
