Why do you need sleep? Scientists say they found the answer

Toronto-Sleep deprivation is known to cause serious health problems, but much remains a mystery about the purpose and function of rest.

Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) now say they have discovered why people need sleep and how it changes early in life.

According to a new study, sleep helps build the brain infrastructure until about two and a half years old. Researchers have since stated that sleep plays a “whole new cluttered role”, focusing on brain maintenance and repair rather than brain building.

“Sleep is as important as food, and how well sleep fits our nervous system needs is miraculous. Everyone, from jellyfish to birds to whales, sleeps. We sleep. Our brains aren’t resting while we’re there, “Po said. Press release..

of Investigation result It was published in Science Advances magazine on Friday.

Researchers have found that during the first two years of life, the brain grows “very rapidly” and during REM sleep (when vivid dreams occur), the young brain builds synapses that connect neurons to each other to facilitate communication. He says he is busy strengthening.

“Don’t wake up your baby during REM sleep. Important work is done in their brains during their sleep,” Po said.

But two and a half years later, the study found that the main purpose of sleep was to switch to brain maintenance. Sleep maintains this role in the rest of human life.

Researchers say this transition corresponds to changes in brain development.

In this study, all animals experienced a certain amount of neuropathy that could accumulate and cause brain disease, such as damaged genes and proteins in neurons, while they were naturally occurring. understood. This study reports that almost all of this brain repair occurs during sleep.

“I was shocked at how big this change was in the short term, and how it happened when we were young,” said senior author and UCLA professor Van Savage in the release.

“It’s a similar transition when water freezes on ice.”

Researchers say their study is the most comprehensive statistical analysis of sleep to date. A team of scientists with expertise in neuroscience, biology, statistics, and physics examined data from more than 60 sleep studies, including humans and other mammals.

They examined developing sleep, including total sleep time, REM sleep time, brain size, and body size. Next, I created and tested a mathematical model to explain how sleep changes with brain and body size.

The results of this study were “very consistent” and found that REM sleep decreased dramatically when all species reached levels comparable to human development about two and a half years ago. ..

Studies have shown that the percentage of time spent in REM sleep was about the same before and after that age, whether in rabbits, rats, pigs, or humans.

The study reports that newborns spend about 50% of their sleep time in REM sleep, which drops to about 25% by age 10 and continues to decline with age. Adults over the age of 50 spend about 15% of their time sleeping in REM, have 5 REM cycles during one night’s sleep, and each cycle has some dreams.

Poe, who has been studying sleep for over 30 years, explains that a significant reduction in REM sleep after age 2 occurs in the same way that major changes in sleep function occur.

Chronic sleep deprivation can cause long-term health problems such as dementia and other cognitive deficits, diabetes and obesity, she said. Po added that when you start feeling tired, you shouldn’t fight it. Instead, just sleep.

“Good night sleep is a great medicine, and it’s free,” Po said.

According to researchers, seven and a half hours of sleep a night is normal for most adults, but children need more sleep, while babies need about twice as much sleep as adults.

“When I was in college, I fought sleep and stayed up all night, but now I think it’s a mistake. I should have had a good night’s sleep,” Savage said. “Now, when I’m tired, I don’t feel guilty about sleep.”