The importance of sleep for both body and brain health is emphasized at every opportunity. In order to get the full benefit of sleep, it is necessary to establish a certain sleep pattern. Sleeping too much, as well as too little sleep, leads to various diseases. Studies show that even a single night’s sleep deprivation causes damage to the brain structure and causes it to age for years.
JUST ONE NIGHT SLEEPLESS CAN AGE UP TO TWO YEARS
A new study published in the Journal of Neuroscience found that lack of sleep may appear to age the brain. Experiencing just one night of complete sleep deprivation has been shown to age some people’s brains by up to two years. The team of researchers from various institutes in Germany, Switzerland and Denmark found that it causes significant changes in brain structure.
As part of the study, MRI data of 134 healthy participants, ages 19 to 39, with various sleep conditions were analyzed. Each night, the participants’ brains were evaluated and their apparent brain age was calculated. Those in the total sleep deprivation group showed that their brain age increased by one to two years. The study explained: “Interestingly, brain age after one night’s rest sleep did not differ from baseline.
ACUTE AND CHRONIC CHANGES ARE NOT IMPORTANT
“We also showed associations between change in brain age after total sleep deprivation and sleep variables measured during the recovery night.” The scientists found that brain age did not change significantly between the acute or chronic groups. “In contrast, acute (three hours in bed at night) or chronic partial sleep restriction (five hours of uninterrupted stay in bed throughout the night) brain age did not change significantly, they said.
EFFECTS CAN BE RETURNED THANKS TO REST SLEEP
“Taken together, the convergent findings suggest that acute total sleep loss alters brain morphology in young participants in an aging-like direction and that these changes can be reversed by resting sleep.”
The study concludes: “Sleep is essential for people to maintain normal physical and psychological functioning. We found increased brain age after total sleep deprivation, which was associated with change in sleep variables in three independent datasets.
“Moreover, the other two datasets found no significant changes in brain age after partial sleep deprivation. Our study provided new evidence to explain the effect of sleep loss in a brain-wide aging-like direction.” But the research did not explore the long-term effects of chronic sleep deprivation.