Tag Archive for: sleep

Enhancing deep sleep - اختراع وسیله ای برای بهبود خواب

Researchers have developed a wearable device that plays specific sounds to enhance deep sleep. The first clinical study has now shown that the device is effective, but not at the same level of effectiveness for everyone.

Many people, especially the elderly, suffer from abnormal sleep. In particular, the deep sleep phases become shorter and shallower with age. Deep sleep is important for the regeneration of the brain and memory, and also has a positive influence on the cardiovascular system.

Researchers have shown that the brain waves characterizing deep sleep, so-​called slow waves, can be improved by playing precisely timed sounds through earphones while sleeping. While this works well in the sleep laboratory under controlled conditions, there has thus far been no at home solution that can be used longer than just one night.

The results have just been published in the journal Communications Medicine.

Release date: 08 April 2022
Source: ETH Zurich

Loss of Neurons Not Lack of Sleep Makes Alzheimers Patients Drowsy - خواب آلودگی در آلزایمر

The lethargy that many Alzheimer’s patients experience is caused not by a lack of sleep, but rather by the degeneration of a type of neuron that keeps us awake, according to a study that also confirms the tau protein is behind that neurodegeneration.

The study’s findings contradict the common notion that Alzheimer’s patients sleep during the day to make up for a bad night of sleep and point toward potential therapies to help these patients feel more awake.

The data came from study participants who were patients at UC San Francisco’s Memory and Aging Center and volunteered to have their sleep monitored with electroencephalogram (EEG) and donate their brains after they died.

Being able to compare the study participants’ sleep data with microscopic views of their post-mortem brain tissue was the key to answering a question that scientists have been pondering for years.

The opposite phenomenon occurs in patients with other neurodegenerative conditions, such as progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), who were also included in the study. Those patients have damage to the neurons that make them feel tired, so they are unable to sleep and become sleep deprived.

Release date: 04 April 2022
Source: University of California – San Francisco

Close the blinds during sleep to protect your health - اهمیت تاریکی مطلق در زمان خواب

Even moderate light exposure during sleep harms heart health and increases insulin resistance.

Close the blinds, draw the curtains and turn off all the lights before bed. Exposure to even moderate ambient lighting during nighttime sleep, compared to sleeping in a dimly lit room, harms your cardiovascular function during sleep and increases your insulin resistance the following morning, reports a new Northwestern Medicine study.

There is already evidence that light exposure during daytime increases heart rate via activation of the sympathetic nervous system, which kicks your heart into high gear and heightens alertness to meet the challenges of the day.

There are sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems to regulate our physiology during the day and night. Sympathetic takes charge during the day and parasympathetic is supposed to at night, when it conveys restoration to the entire body.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Release date: 14 March 2022
Source: Northwestern University

Poor sleep can triple risk for heart disease - عوارض قلبی بدخوابی

Individual aspects of poor sleep can be detrimental to heart health. But if you combine them, the risk of heart disease can increase by as much as 141 percent. That’s the finding of a new study published in the journal Scientific Reports.

The University of South Florida-led study reviewed sleep data of 6,820 U.S. adults with an average age of 53 who self-reported their sleep characteristics and heart disease history. Among the participants, 633 also wore a research device (actigraphy) around their wrist that captured sleep activity.

Researchers focused on multiple aspects of sleep health, such as regularity, satisfaction, alertness during waking hours, timing of sleep, sleep efficiency and sleep duration and linked them to physician-diagnosed heart disease. They found that each additional increase in self-reported sleep health problems was associated with a 54 percent increased risk of heart disease. The estimated risk of heart disease associated with an increase in sleep health problems was much higher for those who provided sleep data by both self-report and the research device. They had a 141 percent increase – a figure that could be perceived to be more accurate.

Release date: 07 February 2022
Source: University of South Florida (USF Innovation)

Pregnancy related sleep changes linked to depression and anxiety - خواب مادر و افسردگی پس از زایمان

Changes in sleep patterns during late pregnancy and shortly afterwards are closely related to severe depression and anxiety, a new McMaster-led study finds.

Senior author Benicio Frey said an estimated 15 to 18 per cent of mothers experience anxiety, and another 7 to 13 per cent have depression during the peripartum period.

As well, nearly 10 per cent of new mothers experience clinical levels of comorbid anxiety and depression during this time.

Researchers identified several variables linked to depression and anxiety, including changes in the strength of the circadian rhythms, the average amount of activity during night-time rest and fragmented sleep. All three were strongly linked to higher depressive and anxiety symptoms.

Researchers recruited 100 women, 73 of whom they followed from the start of the third trimester to three months postpartum. They analyzed subjective and objective measures of sleep, biological rhythms, melatonin levels, and light exposure using a variety of tools, including questionnaires, actigraphs (wearable sleep monitors), laboratory assays, and other methods.

For example, higher fragmentation of nighttime rest was linked to a decrease in depressive symptoms at six to 12 weeks postpartum, a period that tends to coincide with a higher risk of developing postpartum depression, which suggests that mothers with fewer symptoms of depression were more responsive to the overnight baby’s needs.

The comprehensive findings were published in The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. The study was the largest to date investigating sleep and biological rhythms during the peripartum period.

Release date: 18 January 2022
Source: McMaster University

Remembering faces and names can be improved during sleep - جایگاه خواب در تقویت حافظه

For those who rarely forget a face, but struggle with names, the remedy for boosting learning may as near as your pillow.

New research by Northwestern University is the first to document the effect reactivating memory during sleep has on face-name learning.

The researchers found that people’s name recall improved significantly when memories of newly learned face-name associations were reactivated while they were napping. Key to this improvement was uninterrupted deep sleep.

The research team found that for study participants with EEG measures (a recording of electrical activity of the brain picked up by electrodes on the scalp) that indicated disrupted sleep, the memory reactivation didn’t help and may even be detrimental. But in those with uninterrupted sleep during the specific times of sound presentations, the reactivation led to a relative improvement averaging just over 1.5 more names recalled.

The study was conducted on 24 participants, aged 18-31 years old, who were asked to memorize the faces and names of 40 pupils from a hypothetical Latin American history class and another 40 from a Japanese history class. When each face was shown again, they were asked to produce the name that went with it. After the learning exercise, participants took a nap while the researchers carefully monitored brain activity using EEG measurements. When participants reached the N3 “deep sleep” state, some of the names were softly played on a speaker with music that was associated with one of the classes.

When participants woke up, they were retested on recognizing the faces and recalling the name that went with each face.

The paper, “Targeted memory reactivation of face-name learning depends on ample and undisturbed slow-wave sleep,” will publish Jan. 12 in the Nature partner journal “NPJ: Science of Learning.”

Release date: 12 January 2022
Source: Northwestern University

Poor sleep linked to feeling older and worse outlook on ageing which can impact health - بدخوابی و احساس پیری

Poor sleep in the over 50s is linked to more negative perceptions of ageing, which in turn can impact physical, mental and cognitive health, new research has revealed.

A study led by the University of Exeter and found that people who rated their sleep the worst also felt older, and perceived their own physical and mental ageing more negatively.

Lead author Serena Sabatini, of the University of Exeter, said: “As we age, we all experience both positive and negative changes in many areas of our lives. However, some people perceive more negative changes than others. As we know that having a negative perception of ageing can be detrimental to future physical health, mental health, and cognitive health, an open question in ageing research is to understand what makes people more negative about ageing. Our research suggests that poor sleepers feel older, and have a more negative perception of their ageing. We need to study this further – one explanation could be that a more negative outlook influences both. However, it could be a sign that addressing sleep difficulties could promote a better perception of ageing, which could have other health benefits.”

Researchers surveyed 4,482 people aged 50 and over who are part of the PROTECT study. Run by the University of Exeter and the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s College London, and funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre, PROTECT is an innovative online study in which participants take regular cognitive tests and complete lifestyle questionnaires. The study aims to understand what helps people stay cognitively healthy in later life.

As a result of such comments, the team decided to conduct a questionnaire looking specifically at sleep. In the research, published in Behavioral Sleep Medicine, participants were asked whether they had experienced a list of negative age-related changes, such as poorer memory, less energy, increased dependence on the help of others, decreased motivation, and having to limit their activities. They also rated their quality of sleep. The participants completed both questionnaires twice, one year apart.

Release date: 22 November 2021
Source: University of Exeter

Warm milk makes you sleepy - نکته ای ساده برای خواب بهتر

According to time-honored advice, drinking a glass of warm milk at bedtime will encourage a good night’s rest. Milk’s sleep-enhancing properties are commonly ascribed to tryptophan, but scientists have also discovered a mixture of milk peptides, called casein tryptic hydrolysate (CTH), that relieves stress and enhances sleep. Now, researchers reporting in ACS’ Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry have identified specific peptides in CTH that might someday be used in new, natural sleep remedies.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one-third of U.S. adults don’t get enough sleep. Sedatives, such as benzodiazepines and zolpidem, are commonly prescribed for insomnia, but they can cause side effects, and people can become addicted to them. Many sedatives work by activating the GABA receptor, a protein in the brain that suppresses nerve signaling. Scientists have also discovered several natural peptides, or small pieces of proteins, that bind the GABA receptor and have anti-anxiety and sleep-enhancing effects. For example, treating a protein in cow’s milk, called casein, with the digestive enzyme trypsin produces the mixture of sleep-enhancing peptides known as CTH. Within this mixture, a specific peptide known as α-casozepine (α-CZP) has been identified that could be responsible for some of these effects. Lin Zheng, Mouming Zhao and colleagues wondered if they could find other, perhaps more powerful, sleep-enhancing peptides in CTH.

Release date: 13 October 2021
Source: American Chemical Society

Turn Off the Blue Light - نور مناسب تر در شب

Researchers from University of Tsukuba in collaboration with Yamagata University scientists find that exposure to light with less blue before sleep is better for energy metabolism

Tsukuba, Japan—Extended exposure to light during nighttime can have negative consequences for human health. But now, researchers from Japan have identified a new type of light with reduced consequences for physiological changes during sleep.

In a study published in June 2021 in Scientific Reports, researchers from University of Tsukuba compared the effects of light-emitting diodes (LEDs), which have been widely adopted for their energy-saving properties, with organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) on physical processes that occur during sleep.

Polychromatic white LEDs emit a large amount of blue light, which has been linked with many negative health effects, including metabolic health. In contrast, OLEDs emit polychromatic white light that contains less blue light. However, the impact of LED and OLED exposure at night has not been compared in terms of changes in energy metabolism during sleep, something the researchers at University of Tsukuba aimed to address.

Release date: 30 June 2021
Source: University of Tsukuba

People who have trouble sleeping are at a higher risk of dying especially people with diabetes - بدخوابی عاملی برای مرگ زودرس

In a paper published by the Journal of Sleep Research, researchers reveal how they examined data from half a million middle-aged UK participants asked if they had trouble falling asleep at night or woke up in the middle of the night.

The report found that people with frequent sleep problems are at a higher risk of dying than those without sleep problems. This grave outcome was more pronounced for people with Type-2 diabetes: during the nine years of the research, the study found that they were 87 per cent more likely to die of any cause than people without diabetes or sleep disturbances.

The study also found that people with diabetes and sleep problems were 12 per cent more likely to die over this period than those who had diabetes but not frequent sleep disturbances.

Release date: 08 Jun 2021
Source: University of Surrey