[{"command":"openDialog","selector":"#drupal-modal","settings":null,"data":"\u003Cdiv id=\u0022republish_modal_form\u0022\u003E\u003Cform class=\u0022modal-form-example-modal-form ecl-form\u0022 data-drupal-selector=\u0022modal-form-example-modal-form\u0022 action=\u0022\/en\/article\/modal\/6747\u0022 method=\u0022post\u0022 id=\u0022modal-form-example-modal-form\u0022 accept-charset=\u0022UTF-8\u0022\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHorizon articles can be republished for free under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.\u003C\/p\u003E\n \u003Cp\u003EYou must give appropriate credit. We ask you to do this by:\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n 1) Using the original journalist\u0027s byline\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n 2) Linking back to our original story\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n 3) Using the following text in the footer: This article was originally published in \u003Ca href=\u0027#\u0027\u003EHorizon, the EU Research and Innovation magazine\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\n \u003Cp\u003ESee our full republication guidelines \u003Ca href=\u0027\/horizon-magazine\/republish-our-stories\u0027\u003Ehere\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\n \u003Cp\u003EHTML for this article, including the attribution and page view counter, is below:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\u0022js-form-item form-item js-form-type-textarea form-item-body-content js-form-item-body-content ecl-form-group ecl-form-group--text-area form-no-label ecl-u-mv-m\u0022\u003E\n \n\u003Cdiv\u003E\n \u003Ctextarea data-drupal-selector=\u0022edit-body-content\u0022 aria-describedby=\u0022edit-body-content--description\u0022 id=\u0022edit-body-content\u0022 name=\u0022body_content\u0022 rows=\u00225\u0022 cols=\u002260\u0022 class=\u0022form-textarea ecl-text-area\u0022\u003E\u003Ch2\u003ESleep-deprived brains may be asleep and awake at the same time\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAs a general rule, it\u2019s recommended that adults get seven or eight hours of sleep per night, although that may not be the right guideline for everyone. \u2018The amount of sleep people need is highly individual,\u2019 said Dr Vlad Vyazovskiy, a sleep researcher from the University of Oxford in the UK. \u2018It isn\u2019t only about sleep duration either but also about sleep quality.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHowever, there is no doubt that a night of poor sleep affects cognitive abilities the next day. It\u2019s hard to focus when you\u2019re tired, and complicated tasks seem daunting. But how exactly does sleep loss affect your brain? To study the effects of sleep, one of the first things to note is that, on the neuronal level at least, sleep looks almost the same in humans and animals.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018If I look at the activity recorded from the brain of a human and a mouse, I can\u2019t tell it apart,\u2019 said Dr Vyazovskiy. He and his colleagues probed the brain of mice and rats to study sleep-loss conditions as part of the EU-funded SLEEPNEED project.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOne group of experimental mice carried on as they normally would, sleeping and waking up when they wanted to. As they went about their routines, electrodes were used to monitor individual neurons \u2013 brain cells that transmit messages \u2013 over several days and nights to determine how their activity changed during sleep. That brain activity was compared to other mice which had been deprived of sleep.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe challenge was that, even though it is relatively small, a mouse brain still contains over 70 million neurons. \u2018Each one is connected to thousands of others,\u2019 said Dr Vyazovskiy. \u2018It\u2019s a very complex network that we believe somehow generates sleeping and waking states.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cblockquote class=\u0022tw-text-center tw-text-blue tw-font-bold tw-text-2xl lg:tw-w-1\/2 tw-border-2 tw-border-blue tw-p-12 tw-my-8 lg:tw-m-12 lg:tw--ml-16 tw-float-left\u0022\u003E\n \u003Cspan class=\u0022tw-text-5xl tw-rotate-180\u0022\u003E\u201c\u003C\/span\u003E\n \u003Cp class=\u0022tw-font-serif tw-italic\u0022\u003E\u2018It\u2019s as if you can be asleep and awake at the same time.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\n \u003Cfooter\u003E\n \u003Ccite class=\u0022tw-not-italic tw-font-normal tw-text-sm tw-text-black\u0022\u003EDr Vlad Vyazovskiy, University of Oxford, UK\u003C\/cite\u003E\n \u003C\/footer\u003E\n\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\n\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDuring deep sleep, brain activity is dominated by slow delta waves. But Dr Vyazovskiy and his team were surprised to find that some parts of the brain of sleep-deprived mice also exhibited sleep-like activity when they were awake. \u2018We always thought that this type of activity happens only during sleep,\u2019 said Dr Vyazovskiy. \u2018But it\u2019s as if you can be asleep and awake at the same time.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn other experiments, they looked at the effects of sleep deprivation on behaviour. The animals were taught to recognise different images and their ability to tell them apart was later tested when they were tired. They found that the mice only had trouble with the task if the two images were very similar. \u2018It seems like sleep deprivation only affects cognitive abilities that require significant effort,\u2019 said Dr Vyazovskiy. Routine tasks are less likely to be affected.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EDreams intrude on waking life\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFurther investigation showed that it\u2019s not only sleep-deprived mice that demonstrate sleep-like brain activity when awake: it can be the case with well-rested mice too.\u0026nbsp;If these results are replicated in humans, this could help explain why people with schizophrenia or psychosis, for example, claim that dreams intrude on their waking life, making it hard to tell what\u2019s real and what\u2019s not. \u2018Finding out how sleep mechanisms are linked to different conditions and behaviour could lead to new treatments,\u2019 Dr Vyazovskiy said. He is now collaborating with other researchers to see if his findings can help people with psychiatric disorders.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/bit.ly\/newsalertsignup\u0022\u003E\u003Cimg src=\u0022https:\/\/horizon-magazine.eu\/research-and-innovation\/sites\/default\/files\/hm\/news-alert-final.jpg\u0022 alt width=\u0022983\u0022 height=\u0022222\u0022\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIntuitively, it seems like complicated tasks would be hardest to perform when you\u2019re tired, as Dr Vyazovskiy\u2019s work revealed. But another EU-funded project called SLEEP LOSS IN TEENS found that the opposite was the case when they tested adolescents.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr Mairav Cohen-Zion from the Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo in Israel and her colleagues are assessing how sleep loss affects cognition, mood and behaviour in adolescents. The team compared how\u0026nbsp;teenagers performed on tasks of varying difficulty when they were sleep deprived and when they had had a good night\u2019s sleep. As tasks became more difficult, tired teens performed better until they hit a limit where an extremely complex problem made them crash.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr Cohen-Zion thinks that hard tasks force teens to focus even when sleep deprived so that they can retrieve and process information. However when tasks are simple, sleepiness wins. \u2018They did badly, because they were unchallenged and tired and didn\u2019t make an effort,\u2019 she said. \u2018Their attention flagged.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ESleep in teenagers\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EInsufficient sleep did, however, mean that the\u0026nbsp;teens\u0027 motor skills weren\u2019t as sharp, which is something that Dr Cohen-Zion didn\u0027t foresee. \u2018I expected that they could do the motor skill tests in their sleep,\u2019 she said. \u2018We expected the teenagers to have very good hand-eye coordination since they typically play a lot of video games and spend a lot of time using screens.\u2019\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFurthermore, Dr Cohen-Zion and her team found that a person\u2019s chronotype \u2013 whether they are predisposed to being a morning lark or a night owl \u2013 played a role in how sleep loss affected them. Adolescents that were evening-inclined had more trouble functioning the next day compared to those who are more morning people that slept the same amount.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESimilarly, early school start times can contribute to chronic sleep loss in teenagers, who often tend to stay up late. Previously conducted sleep studies helped delay morning classes in some countries. \u2018In Israel where I live, most schools don\u2019t start before 8 am anymore,\u2019 she said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESo how can research help solve sleep problems? Both Dr Vyazovskiy and Dr Cohen-Zion think that raising public awareness is key so that people change their habits. \u2018Many people don\u2019t realise how important sleep is,\u2019 said Dr Vyazovskiy.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EIf you liked this article, please consider sharing it on social media.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003E\u003Cfigure role=\u0022group\u0022 class=\u0022@alignleft@\u0022\u003E\n\u003Cimg alt=\u0022The effects of sleep deprivation can be felt almost immediately but scientists do not know how long someone can last without shuteye.\u0022 height=\u00221900\u0022 src=\u0022https:\/\/horizon-magazine.eu\/research-and-innovation\/sites\/default\/files\/hm\/Sleep_deprivationv2-1-72dpi.jpg\u0022 title=\u0022The effects of sleep deprivation can be felt almost immediately but scientists do not know how long someone can last without shuteye.\u0022 width=\u0022983\u0022\u003E\n\u003Cfigcaption class=\u0022tw-italic tw-mb-4\u0022\u003EThe effects of sleep deprivation can be felt almost immediately but scientists do not know how long someone can last without shuteye.\u003C\/figcaption\u003E\n\u003C\/figure\u003E\n\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/textarea\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n\n \u003Cdiv id=\u0022edit-body-content--description\u0022 class=\u0022ecl-help-block description\u0022\u003E\n Please copy the above code and embed it onto your website to republish.\n \u003C\/div\u003E\n \u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cinput autocomplete=\u0022off\u0022 data-drupal-selector=\u0022form-khd6rl8-kiflshbp-2e4pewa85-lmmc3reif-vcf8ny\u0022 type=\u0022hidden\u0022 name=\u0022form_build_id\u0022 value=\u0022form-kHd6RL8_KiFLSHbP_2E4peWa85-lMMC3rEIF_Vcf8nY\u0022 \/\u003E\n\u003Cinput data-drupal-selector=\u0022edit-modal-form-example-modal-form\u0022 type=\u0022hidden\u0022 name=\u0022form_id\u0022 value=\u0022modal_form_example_modal_form\u0022 \/\u003E\n\u003C\/form\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E","dialogOptions":{"width":"800","modal":true,"title":"Republish this content"}}]