Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by azrael on Friday August 15 2014, @12:48PM   Printer-friendly
from the mess-it-up-with-caffeine dept.

Scientists have discovered a single gene that is responsible for the sleep-wake cycle (abstract), which could lead to a drug to reset sleep.

Scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have identified a gene that regulates sleep and wake rhythms.

The discovery of the role of this gene, called Lhx1, provides scientists with a potential therapeutic target to help night-shift workers or jet lagged travelers adjust to time differences more quickly. The results, published in eLife, can point to treatment strategies for sleep problems caused by a variety of disorders.

"It's possible that the severity of many dementias comes from sleep disturbances," says Satchidananda Panda, a Salk associate professor who led the research team. "If we can restore normal sleep, we can address half of the problem."

Every cell in the body has a 'clock' - an abundance of proteins that dip or rise rhythmically over approximately 24 hours. The master clock responsible for establishing these cyclic circadian rhythms and keeping all the body's cells in sync is the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), a small, densely packed region of about 20,000 neurons housed in the brain's hypothalamus.

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 15 2014, @01:42PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 15 2014, @01:42PM (#81719)

    Subject a future "label"?

  • (Score: 2) by randmcnatt on Friday August 15 2014, @03:04PM

    by randmcnatt (671) on Friday August 15 2014, @03:04PM (#81742)
    Speaking as a victim of disrupted sleep cycles (I'm bipolar -- I waver from waking at 2AM to sleeping past noon) this sounds like a great new tool for psychiatry.

    Now, if it just doesn't take fifteen years to get an effective med on the market.
    --
    The Wright brothers were not the first to fly: they were the first to land.
    • (Score: 3, Funny) by morgauxo on Friday August 15 2014, @03:33PM

      by morgauxo (2082) on Friday August 15 2014, @03:33PM (#81751)

      Yeah right! 15 years is probably optimistic.

    • (Score: 2) by wantkitteh on Friday August 15 2014, @03:42PM

      by wantkitteh (3362) on Friday August 15 2014, @03:42PM (#81757) Homepage Journal

      15 years... I can't do another 15 years of DSPS. I'm about 5 hours behind, my wake period tries to be noon-5am. I have a 9-5 job and despite 5HTP and sunlamp therapy, it's now Friday afternoon and I'm a total wreck. Might have to lose the 5HTP soon too, giving me heartburn. Back on valerian root again... *sighs*

      • (Score: 2) by DECbot on Friday August 15 2014, @04:21PM

        by DECbot (832) on Friday August 15 2014, @04:21PM (#81778) Journal

        ... my wake period tries to be noon-5am. I have a 9-5 job

        I'm glad that I'm not the only one who feels like those are natural hours. Honestly, I find that I really like starting my day at 5 something in the morning, by the time I get to work I feel awake and focused. The few days (I count them on one hand) that this has happened naturally were great. I ran or swam, read the news and had a leisurely breakfast. Normally I sleep through the alarm for over an hour or hit the snooze button every ten minutes for about an hour and a half; recalling only hitting the snooze button once or twice. I really wish it was easier to wake up during sunrise instead of zenith. About the only thing that I have found that works are kids willing to jump on your head, demanding pancakes at 7 in the morning. Even them I'm a zombie until just after midday.

         

        I feel like I have descended from a class of people bred to hunt, rape, and pillage in the middle of the night while all the 9-5ers are sleeping. Obviously, I'm currently working in the wrong industry.

        --
        cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
        • (Score: 2) by Geotti on Saturday August 16 2014, @02:00AM

          by Geotti (1146) on Saturday August 16 2014, @02:00AM (#81955) Journal

          I feel like I have descended from a class of people bred to hunt, rape, and pillage in the middle of the night while all the 9-5ers are sleeping.

          This would really explain a lot of my behavior... Gotta remember that next time my wife tells met that I should be awake "normal" hours like a "normal" person.

    • (Score: 1) by UpnAtom on Saturday August 16 2014, @07:49PM

      by UpnAtom (4626) on Saturday August 16 2014, @07:49PM (#82118)
      Have you tried temazepam? I found that stuff disturbingly effective.

      Sorry if this is obvious, but finding a flexitime job helps a lot.
      • (Score: 2) by randmcnatt on Saturday August 16 2014, @10:24PM

        by randmcnatt (671) on Saturday August 16 2014, @10:24PM (#82152)
        The side effects and possibility of addiction would have me skittish, as well as a general unease about benzodiazepines in general, including the possibility of triggering both depression and mania. Plus, I think it's strictly for short term use, and a bipolar's sleep problems are for a lifetime.
        --
        The Wright brothers were not the first to fly: they were the first to land.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 15 2014, @04:31PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 15 2014, @04:31PM (#81780)

    I've always like being awake 11:00 am to 2:00 am. I've gravitated this way since junior high school, and 20 years later, if I have a day or two available to do that, it comes natural.

    I've seen health professionals about it, because it's obviously not conducive for a 9-5er, and have tried basically everything. Cut out caffeine and stimulants for a year, working out, and taking sleep supplements as early as 9:30 pm while doing nothing more than light-reading in bed. I can comfortably pull a midnight to 9:00am sleep, but as soon as my life isn't 100% focused on sleeping properly again, I flip back in a week or so.

    It sucks, but I have a much higher quality of life with caffeine and bags under my eyes, so what else can I do?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 15 2014, @04:46PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 15 2014, @04:46PM (#81786)

    How can they definitively state only one gene affects the cycle? I can't imagine they've controlled for the vast multitude of genes in the human body. Maybe they found one that affects the cycle, but that's different than saying only one genes affects the cycle.

    • (Score: 2) by gringer on Friday August 15 2014, @10:27PM

      by gringer (962) on Friday August 15 2014, @10:27PM (#81890)

      I can't imagine they've controlled for the vast multitude of genes in the human body

      No, because this is a mouse study, not a human study. This was also a "fishing" (or hypothesis-generating) study that happened to only find one likely candidate (instead of the usual hundreds), although there was a bit of pre-filtering to find that gene:

      They identified 213 gene expression changes that were unique to the SCN and narrowed in on 13 of these that coded for molecules that turn on and off other genes. Of those, only one was suppressed in response to light: Lhx1.

      The next step would be to validate this in other mouse populations (or the same population in a different lab), then create mutants that have the gene able to be selectively turned off. When you create a specific mutant (and verify the mutation), it is possible to control for all the other genes in the body. Of course, we can't do this in humans, so you have to just hope that the human variant of the gene serves the same purpose (and do further testing to confirm how likely that is to be the case).

      It'll be a while yet before Lhx1-modifying drugs appear on the supermarket shelves, if they work at all.

      --
      Ask me about Sequencing DNA in front of Linus Torvalds [youtube.com]
    • (Score: 2) by Geotti on Saturday August 16 2014, @02:06AM

      by Geotti (1146) on Saturday August 16 2014, @02:06AM (#81958) Journal

      "They" just know! How could you doubt the "evidence" that is available to "them" that there are <insert "WMDs in Iraq" style lie here>?!
      Oh wait, that was the government. Well, anyways, "They" are scientists, you blasphemer! Next thing you're going to propose that there was a big explosion that started everything... Wait a moment, I think I'm confusing something here!