PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Study of twins discovers gene mutation linked to short sleep duration

Gene variant may allow a small percentage of adults to sleep less than six hours per night

2014-07-31
(Press-News.org) DARIEN, IL – Researchers who studied 100 twin pairs have identified a gene mutation that may allow the carrier to function normally on less than six hours of sleep per night. The genetic variant also appears to provide greater resistance to the effects of sleep deprivation.

Results show that a participant with p.Tyr362His – a variant of the BHLHE41 gene – had an average nightly sleep duration of only five hours, which was more than one hour shorter than the non-carrier twin, who slept for about six hours and five minutes per night. The twin with the gene mutation also had 40 percent fewer average lapses of performance during 38 hours without sleep and required less recovery sleep afterward – sleeping only eight hours after the period of extended sleep deprivation compared with his twin brother, who slept for 9.5 hours.

According to the authors, this is only the second study to link a mutation of the BHLHE41 gene – also known as DEC2 - to short sleep duration. The study provides new insights into the genetic basis of short sleep in humans and the molecular mechanisms involved in setting the duration of sleep that individuals need.

"This work provides an important second gene variant associated with sleep deprivation and for the first time shows the role of BHLHE41 in resistance to sleep deprivation in humans," said lead author Renata Pellegrino, PhD, senior research associate in the Center for Applied Genomics at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "The mutation was associated with resistance to the neurobehavioral effects of sleep deprivation."

Study results are published in the Aug. 1 issue of the journal Sleep.

The study group comprised 100 twin pairs – 59 monozygotic pairs and 41 dizygotic pairs – who were recruited at the University of Pennsylvania. All twin pairs were the same sex and were healthy with no chronic conditions. Nightly sleep duration was measured at home by actigraphy for seven to eight nights. Response to 38 hours of sleep deprivation and length of recovery sleep were assessed in a sleep lab. During sleep deprivation, cognitive performance was measured every two hours using the Psychomotor Vigilance Test.

Although individual sleep needs vary, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends that adults get about seven to nine hours of nightly sleep. However, a small percentage of adults are normal short sleepers who routinely obtain less than six hours of sleep per night without any complaints of sleep difficulties and no obvious daytime dysfunction.

"This study emphasizes that our need for sleep is a biological requirement, not a personal preference," said American Academy of Sleep Medicine President Dr. Timothy Morgenthaler. "Most adults appear to need at least seven hours of quality sleep each night for optimal health, productivity and daytime alertness."

According to the AASM, most people who regularly get six hours of sleep or less are restricting their sleep and suffer from insufficient sleep syndrome, which occurs when an individual persistently fails to obtain the amount of sleep required to maintain normal levels of alertness and wakefulness. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate that 28 percent of U.S. adults report sleeping six hours or less in a 24-hour period. Insufficient sleep results in increased daytime sleepiness, concentration problems and lowered energy level, and it increases the risk of depression, drowsy driving, and workplace accidents.

INFORMATION: The study involved a collaboration between researchers from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia; Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP) in São Paulo, Brazil; Koc University in Istanbul, Turkey; the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine; the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center; and Washington State University. The research was supported in part by grants from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Institutional Development Fund from the Center for Applied Genomics at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

To request a copy of the study, "A Novel BHLHE41Variant is Associated with Short Sleep and Resistance to Sleep Deprivation in Humans," or to arrange an interview with the study author or an AASM spokesperson, please contact Communications Coordinator Lynn Celmer at 630-737-9700, ext. 9364, or lcelmer@aasmnet.org.

The monthly, peer-reviewed, scientific journal Sleep is published online by the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC, a joint venture of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society. The AASM is a professional membership society that improves sleep health and promotes high quality patient centered care through advocacy, education, strategic research, and practice standards. A searchable directory of AASM accredited sleep centers is available at http://www.sleepeducation.org.


ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Sustained efficacy, immunogenicity, and safety for GlaxoSmithKline's HPV vaccine

2014-07-31
A long-term follow-up study (HPV-023; NCT00518336) shows the sustained efficacy, immunogenicity and safety of GlaxoSmithKline's human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine Cervarix. Women vaccinated with the HPV-16/18 AS04-adjuvanted vaccine were followed for more than nine years, and vaccine efficacy (VE) against incident infection was 100%. This is the longest follow-up report for a licensed HPV vaccine. Visit https://www.landesbioscience.com/journals/vaccines/article/29532/ for the full paper. HPV and vaccination Persistent infection with HPV has been clearly established ...

Algorithm reduces use of CT scans when diagnosing children with appendicitis

2014-07-31
ROCHESTER, Minn. — Implementation of an algorithm aimed to diagnose pediatric patients with suspected appendicitis reduces the utilization of computed tomography (CT) scans, without affecting diagnostic accuracy, Mayo Clinic Children's Center researchers have found. The study was recently published in the journal Surgery. Acute appendicitis is the most common cause of acute abdominal pain in children. Appendicitis occurs when the appendix becomes inflamed and filled with pus. CT scans are often used to diagnose acute appendicitis because they are accurate, widely available ...

Study of bigeye tuna in Northwest Atlantic uses new tracking methods

Study of bigeye tuna in Northwest Atlantic uses new tracking methods
2014-07-31
AMHERST, Mass. – A first-of-its-kind study of bigeye tuna movements in the northwestern Atlantic Ocean led by Molly Lutcavage, director of the Large Pelagics Research Center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, found among other things that these fish cover a wide geographical range with pronounced north-south movements from Georges Bank to the Brazilian shelf, and they favor a high-use area off Cape Hatteras southwest of Bermuda for foraging. This NOAA-funded research, which used a new approach to study one of the most important commercial tuna species in the ...

Unintended consequences: More high school math, science linked to more dropouts

Unintended consequences: More high school math, science linked to more dropouts
2014-07-31
As U.S. high schools beef up math and science requirements for graduation, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have found that more rigorous academics drive some students to drop out. The research team reported in the June/July issue of the journal Educational Researcher that policies increasing the number of required high school math and science courses are linked to higher dropout rates. "There's been a movement to make education in the United States compare more favorably to education in the rest of the world, and part of that has involved increasing ...

Is it really a concussion? Symptoms overlap with neck injuries so diagnosis is tough call

Is it really a concussion? Symptoms overlap with neck injuries so diagnosis is tough call
2014-07-31
BUFFALO, N.Y. – Athletes and others reporting cognitive difficulties after a head injury are usually diagnosed as having had a concussion. But is it really a concussion? A new study published by University at Buffalo medical faculty finds that many of the same symptoms are common to concussions and to injuries to the neck and/or balance system, known collectively as cervical/vestibular injuries. The research was based on responses about symptoms from 128 patients – some of whom were professional athletes – who were being treated at UB's Concussion Management Clinic in ...

Invasive lionfish likely safe to eat after all

Invasive lionfish likely safe to eat after all
2014-07-31
Scientists have learned that recent fears of invasive lionfish causing fish poisoning may be unfounded. If so, current efforts to control lionfish by fishing derbies and targeted fisheries may remain the best way to control the invasion. And there's a simple way to know for sure whether a lionfish is toxic: test it after it's been cooked. Pacific lionfish were first reported off the coast of Florida in the 1980s, and have been gaining swiftly in number ever since. They're now found in marine habitats throughout the tropical and subtropical Western Atlantic, Caribbean ...

Certain Arctic lakes store more greenhouse gases than they release

Certain Arctic lakes store more greenhouse gases than they release
2014-07-31
New research, supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), counters a widely-held scientific view that thawing permafrost uniformly accelerates atmospheric warming, indicating instead that certain Arctic lakes store more greenhouse gases than they emit into the atmosphere. The study, published this week in the journal Nature, focuses on thermokarst lakes, which occur as permafrost thaws and creates surface depressions that fill with melted fresh water, converting what was previously frozen land into lakes. The research suggests that Arctic thermokarst lakes ...

NASA's Fermi space telescope reveals new source of gamma rays

NASAs Fermi space telescope reveals new source of gamma rays
2014-07-31
Observations by NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope of several stellar eruptions, called novae, firmly establish these relatively common outbursts almost always produce gamma rays, the most energetic form of light. "There's a saying that one is a fluke, two is a coincidence, and three is a class, and we're now at four novae and counting with Fermi," said Teddy Cheung, an astrophysicist at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, and the lead author of a paper reporting the findings in the Aug. 1 edition of the journal Science. A nova is a sudden, short-lived brightening ...

Study finds physical link to strange electronic behavior

Study finds physical link to strange electronic behavior
2014-07-31
HOUSTON -- (July 31, 2014) -- Scientists have new clues this week about one of the baffling electronic properties of the iron-based high-temperature superconductor barium iron nickel arsenide. A Rice University-led team of U.S., German and Chinese physicists has published the first evidence, based on sophisticated neutron measurements, of a link between magnetic properties and the material's tendency, at sufficiently low temperatures, to become a better conductor of electricity in some directions than in others. The odd behavior, which has been documented in a number ...

Hubble shows farthest lensing galaxy yields clues to early universe

Hubble shows farthest lensing galaxy yields clues to early universe
2014-07-31
Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have unexpectedly discovered the most distant galaxy that acts as a cosmic magnifying glass. Seen here as it looked 9.6 billion years ago, this monster elliptical galaxy breaks the previous record-holder by 200 million years. These "lensing" galaxies are so massive that their gravity bends, magnifies, and distorts light from objects behind it, a phenomenon called gravitational lensing. Finding one in such a small area of the sky is so rare that you would normally have to survey a region hundreds of times larger to find just ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Modesty and boastfulness – perception depends on usual performance

Do sweeteners increase your appetite? New evidence from randomised controlled trial says no 

Women with obesity do not need to gain weight during pregnancy, new study suggests

Individuals with multiple sclerosis face substantially greater risk of hospitalisation and death from COVID-19, despite high rates of vaccination

Study shows obesity in childhood associated with a more than doubling of risk of developing multiple sclerosis in early adulthood

Rice Emerging Scholars Program receives $2.5M NSF grant to boost STEM education

Virtual rehabilitation provides benefits for stroke recovery

Generative AI develops potential new drugs for antibiotic-resistant bacteria

Biofuels could help island nations survive a global catastrophe, study suggests

NJIT research team discovering how fluids behave in nanopores with NSF grant

New study shows association of historical housing discrimination and shortfalls in colon cancer treatment

Social media use may help to empower plastic surgery patients

Q&A: How to train AI when you don't have enough data

Wayne State University researchers uncover potential treatment targets for Zika virus-related eye abnormalities

Discovering Van Gogh in the wild: scientists unveil a new gecko species

Small birds spice up the already diverse diet of spotted hyenas in Namibia

Imaging detects transient “hypoxic pockets” in the mouse brain

Dissolved organic matter could be used to track and improve the health of freshwaters

Indoor air quality standards in public buildings would boost health and economy, say international experts

Positive associations between premenstrual disorders and perinatal depression

New imaging method illuminates oxygen's journey in the brain

Researchers discover key gene for toxic alkaloid in barley

New approach to monitoring freshwater quality can identify sources of pollution, and predict their effects

Bidirectional link between premenstrual disorders and perinatal depression

Cell division quality control ‘stopwatch’ uncovered

Vaccine protects cattle from bovine tuberculosis, may eliminate disease

Andrew Siemion to receive the SETI Institute’s 2024 Drake Award

New study shows how the Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus enters our cells

Neoadjuvant chemotherapy proves effective for locally advanced penile squamous cell carcinoma

Study flips treatment paradigm in bilateral Wilms tumor, shows resistance to chemotherapy may point toward favorable outcomes

[Press-News.org] Study of twins discovers gene mutation linked to short sleep duration
Gene variant may allow a small percentage of adults to sleep less than six hours per night