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posted by Fnord666 on Monday August 14 2017, @05:07PM   Printer-friendly
from the bone-tired dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

UCLA scientists report the first evidence that a gene outside the brain controls the ability to rebound from sleep deprivation — a surprising discovery that could eventually lead to greatly improved treatments for insomnia and other sleep disorders that do not involve getting a drug into the brain.

The scientists report that increasing the level of Bmal1 — a critical master gene that regulates sleep patterns — in skeletal muscle makes mice resistant to sleep deprivation.

"When we first saw the importance of the muscle, we were surprised," said senior author Ketema Paul, UCLA associate professor of integrative biology and physiology. "At first we didn't believe it, so we repeated the experiment several times. We finally realized this is not a mistake; this is real."

The research, published in the journal eLife, is the first evidence that a biological clock in the muscle can communicate with the brain, and is potentially good news for people who lose sleep because of factors including a crying newborn or a job that does not allow for normal sleep cycles, such as active military service.

Chronic sleep deprivation increases the risk for heart disease, stroke, diabetes, infectious diseases and other illnesses, said Paul, a neurobiologist and member of UCLA's Brain Research Institute. Having a resistance to sleep loss may reduce the risk of getting these diseases, Paul said, and his team reports evidence that increased Bmal1 in the skeletal muscle may provide this resistance.

Source: http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/sleep-biology-discovery-could-lead-to-new-insomnia-treatments-that-dont-target-the-brain


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 14 2017, @07:23PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 14 2017, @07:23PM (#553811)

    So muscle fatigue causes insomnia rather than the other way round?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 14 2017, @07:26PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 14 2017, @07:26PM (#553813)

    I can report anecdotal results--when I get a therapeutic massage from an LMT, I almost always get sleepy.