Sleep deprived teenagers may have to face brain damage...

Parents, please note - make sure
that your teenage children get
adequate sleep daily, for a new
study has claimed sleep deficiency
could affect their brains later in
life.
Researchers at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison have carried out
the study and found that sleep-
deprived teenagers are at risk of
long-term damage to wiring of their
brains, the ’Daily Mail’ reported.
They found that short-term sleep
restriction prevents the balanced
growth and depletion of brain
synapses, which are the connections
between nerve cells where
communication occurs.
“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,” said lead researcher
Dr Chiara Cirelli.
Mental illnesses such as
schizophrenia tend to start during
adolescence but the exact reasons
remain unclear, say the researchers.
“Adolescence is a sensitive period of
development during which the brain
changes dramatically. There is a
massive remodelling of nerve
circuits, with many new synapses
formed and then eliminated,” she
said.
For their study, the researchers
analysed the brains of mice. They
wanted to see how alterations to the
sleep-wake cycle affected the
anatomy of the developing
adolescent brain in the animals.
Using a two-photon microscope, the
researchers indirectly followed the
growth and retraction of synapses
by counting dendritic spines, the
elongated structures that contain
synapses and thus allow brain cells
to receive impulses from other brain
cells.
They compared adolescent mice that
for eight to 10 hours were
spontaneously awake, allowed to
sleep or forced to stay awake. The
live images showed that being asleep
or awake made a difference in the
dynamic adolescent mouse brain -
the overall density of dendritic
spines fell during sleep and rose
during spontaneous or forced
wakefulness.
“These results using acute
manipulations of just eight to 10
hours show that the time spent
asleep or awake affects how many
synapses are being formed or
removed in the adolescent brain,”
Prof Cirelli said.
She added: “The important next
question is what happens with
chronic sleep restriction, a condition
that many adolescents are often
experiencing. It could be that the
changes are benign, temporary and
reversible or there could be lasting
consequences for brain maturation
and functioning.”
The findings have been published in
the latest edition of the ‘Nature
Neuroscience’ journal.