Category: Sleep Disorders News

Can staying up late make you fat? Researchers found the opposite to be true when they studied sleep in worms: It’s not the sleep loss that leads to obesity, but rather that excess weight can cause poor sleep. Source

Going to bed early and following a consistent bedtime routine may help reduce children’s risk of becoming overweight or obese, according to a new study published in Acta Paediatrica. Source

While sleeping the brain goes through previously experienced things, consolidates new memory contents and summarizes similar experiences into more general knowledge. This also applies to babies. However, they can more than just generalize what they have learned. A recent study shows: during sleep a baby’s brain also consolidates the details of its individual experience and protects them from generalization and is therefore also important for what is known as episodic memory. Source

Researchers found that individuals going to bed even 30 minutes later than their usual bedtime presented a significantly higher resting heart rate that lasted into the following day. Source

They are young and well-trained – but a fourth of sport science students suffers from pain in combination with psychosocial stresses. Source

Researchers identified neurons that promote non-REM sleep in the brainstem in mice. These neurons commonly expressed the gene that encodes the neuropeptide neurotensin. Activation of these neurons induced non-REM sleep. Moreover, direct administration of neurotensin into the ventricle induced NREM sleep-like brain activity. These findings contribute to our understanding of sleep promotion and sleep disorders, and could tell us more about the evolution of sleep architecture in mammals. Source

Compared with people who slept for longer or shorter periods of time, those who reported sleeping seven or eight hours a night had significantly less evidence of stiffness in their arteries, indicating a lower chance of developing heart disease or suffering a stroke, according to new research. Source

An important biological mechanism that is thought to protect brain cells from neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s may also be involved in regulating sleep, according to new research. Source

Disrupted and poor quality sleep in the earliest months of a child’s life can be an indicator of depression, anxiety and behavioral problems among toddlers, according to a new study. Source

Persistent sleep difficulties during the first 12 months of life are linked to a heightened risk of developing childhood anxieties and emotional disorders, indicates research. Source