Research team prevents symptoms of sleep deprivation in mice

Are Penn students getting enough sleep? Most likely not, but science may eventually offer a solution.

Post-doctoral research fellow Robbert Havekes and his research team have found that cognitive impairments resulting from sleep deprivation may not be completely untreatable.

College freshman Anuj Amin, who is a contributing writer for the Daily Pennsylvanian, blatantly said, “I don’t get enough sleep here.” Amin slept four to five hours a night on average during his first semester at Penn, though he hopes to increase that number. “But it’s hard when you always feel like you have to work, to the point where it’s giving you insomnia,” he said.

He is not alone in his sentiments. “I feel like people are preoccupied by so many distractions,” said College freshman Anon. “It’s not that Penn gives us too much work, it’s just that there’s so much else to do here besides homework, and there’s no time in between to sleep.”

The results of sleep deprivation are notorious — memory-loss and a lack of awareness are common symptoms of a sleepyhead.

Havekes has done research in sleep-deprivation-induced cognitive impairments for a decade. The fact that people aren’t getting enough sleep “is something everybody understands. [...] There are more societal pressures to do work and lose out on sleep than there were 50 years ago,” Havekes said, and the trend only seems to be increasing.

Along with other scientists from Penn, Havekes investigated certain cells and signal pathways in the brain that are responsible for sleep-affected memory loss. Sleep-deprived lab mice were given injections of octopamine to prevent memory loss due to sleep deprivation. The mice that were given injections performed memory trials just as well as those that had slept sufficiently.

But Havekes was careful to say that we aren’t about to stumble upon a cure-all drug to prevent the symptoms of sleep deprivation. His research is starting to help scientists understand how and why memory loss happens in the brain from a lack of sleep, but the whole body is affected when sleep is missed. For example, diabetes and certain cancers can result from extreme sleep deprivation.

Many people already attempt to overcome their sleep deprivation with a common drug — caffeine. But, Havekes believes that any such sleep-replacing drug is far from development. Although, he noted that a remedy to sleep deprivation would likely have a large market, as so many people need more sleep.

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