(Press-News.org) Neuroscientists studying the link between poor sleep and schizophrenia have found that irregular sleep patterns and desynchronised brain activity during sleep could trigger some of the disease's symptoms. The findings, published in the journal Neuron, suggest that these prolonged disturbances might be a cause and not just a consequence of the disorder's debilitating effects.
The possible link between poor sleep and schizophrenia prompted the research team, led by scientists from the University of Bristol, the Lilly Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience and funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC), to explore the impact of irregular sleep patterns on the brain by recording electrical brain activity in multiple brain regions during sleep.
For many people, sleep deprivation can affect mood, concentration and stress levels. In extreme cases, prolonged sleep deprivation can induce hallucinations, memory loss and confusion all of which are also symptoms associated with schizophrenia.
Dr Ullrich Bartsch, one of the study's researchers, said: "Sleep disturbances are well-documented in the disease, though often regarded as side effects and poorly understood in terms of their potential to actually trigger its symptoms."
Using a rat model of the disease, the team's recordings showed desynchronisation of the waves of activity which normally travel from the front to the back of the brain during deep sleep. In particular the information flow between the hippocampus — involved in memory formation, and the frontal cortex — involved in decision-making, appeared to be disrupted. The team's findings reported distinct irregular sleep patterns very similar to those observed in schizophrenia patients.
Dr Matt Jones, the lead researcher from the University's School of Physiology and Pharmacology, added: "Decoupling of brain regions involved in memory formation and decision-making during wakefulness are already implicated in schizophrenia, but decoupling during sleep provides a new mechanistic explanation for the cognitive deficits observed in both the animal model and patients: sleep disturbances might be a cause, not just a consequence of schizophrenia. In fact, abnormal sleep patterns may trigger abnormal brain activity in a range of conditions."
Cognitive deficits — reduced short term memory and attention span, are typically resistant to medication in patients. The findings from this study provide new angles for neurocognitive therapy in schizophrenia and related psychiatric diseases.
###
Paper
The study, entitled 'Decoupling of Sleep-Dependent Cortical and Hippocampal Interactions in a Neurodevelopmental Model of Schizophrenia' by Keith G. Phillips(1, 2, 3), Ullrich Bartsch(2, 3), Andrew P. McCarthy(1), Dale M. Edgar (1), Mark D. Tricklebank(1), Keith A. Wafford(1), Matt W. Jones(1,2), was published in the journal Neuron on 8 November 2012.
1. Lilly Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, Eli Lilly and Company
2. School of Physiology and Pharmacology, MRC Centre for Synaptic Plasticity, University of Bristol
3. These authors contributed equally to this work
The research was funded by the Lilly Centre for Cognitive Neurosciences, the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly & Co, and the Medical Research Council.
Could poor sleep contribute to symptoms of schizophrenia?
2012-11-14
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
World's largest respiratory genetics study launches on World COPD Day
2012-11-14
Researchers from the Universities of Nottingham and Leicester are leading the largest ever study of the genetics relating to lung disease.
The project will investigate what determines an individual's lung health and why smoking harms the lungs of some people more than others and will use health information held by UK Biobank, a major national resource holding health information from half a million volunteers.
The study, funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and also involving scientists at St George's, University of London, is aiming to shed light on why some ...
How safe are our roads for Bradley and the nation's cyclists?
2012-11-14
A new government-funded study is to be carried out into how Britain's roads could be made safer for cyclists to reduce the risk of cycling injuries, encourage more people to use bikes and improve public health.
Amid fresh calls for action on road safety after the recent separate accidents involving world-famous cyclist Bradley Wiggins and the top cycling mentor Shane Sutton, researchers at The University of Nottingham are leading a study which will assess the effectiveness of the current cycling infrastructure and ask 'which features installed for cyclists are most effective ...
What lies beneath? New survey technique offers detailed picture of our changing landscape
2012-11-14
A new surveying technique developed at The University of Nottingham is giving geologists their first detailed picture of how ground movement associated with historical mining is changing the face of our landscape.
The new development by engineers at the University has revealed a more complete map of subsidence and uplift caused by the settlement of old mines in the East Midlands and other areas of the country and has shown that small movements in the landscape are bound by natural fault lines and mining blocks.
It appears to support concerns that movement associated ...
Lmod: The 'secret sauce' behind module management at TACC
2012-11-14
It's likely that fellow users on your favorite supercomputer have widely varying needs. The applications, compilers, and libraries that you need are probably different from the ones other users need. That is where modern environment module systems come in. A good module system "sets the table " for users by loading the packages each user needs.
The Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) has developed an innovative module system that addresses some unique challenges facing modern computing centers.
Life in the world of computing has become much more complicated since ...
Rare parasitic fungi could have anti-flammatory benefits
2012-11-14
Caterpillar fungi (Cordyceps) are rare parasites found on hibernating caterpillars in the mountains of Tibet. For centuries they have been highly prized as a traditional Chinese medicine - just a small amount can fetch hundreds of pounds.
Scientists at The University of Nottingham have been studying how this fungus could work by studying cordycepin, one of the drugs found in these mushrooms. They have already discovered that cordycepin has potential as a cancer drug. Their new work indicates that it could also have anti-inflammatory characteristics with the potential ...
In financial ecosystems, big banks trample economic habitats and spread fiscal disease
2012-11-14
Like the impact of an elephant herd grazing on grassland, multinational banks shape the financial environment to an extent that far outweighs their small number. And like a contagious person on a transnational flight, when these giant, interconnected banks succumb to financial ills, they are uniquely positioned to infect wide swaths of the financial system.
Researchers from Princeton University, the Bank of England and the University of Oxford applied methods inspired by ecosystem stability and contagion models to banking meltdowns and found that large national and international ...
Tolerance to malaria by means of iron control
2012-11-14
Malaria is a life-threatening condition that exposes approximately half of the world's population to the risk of developing a severe and often lethal form of disease. In a study published in the latest issue of the journal Cell Host & Microbe*, Miguel Soares and his team at Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC), Portugal, discovered that the development of severe forms of malaria can be prevented by a simple mechanism that controls the accumulation of iron in tissues of the infected host. They found that expression of a gene that neutralizes iron inside cells, named H Ferritin, ...
Want better employees? Get somebody else to rate their personalities, suggests new study
2012-11-14
Toronto – Businesses will get more accurate assessments of potential and current employees if they do away with self-rated personality tests and ask those being assessed to find someone else to rate them, suggest results from a new study.
Previous job performance studies have shown that outsiders are best at rating an individual's personality in terms of how they work on the job. But observers in these studies have always been co-workers.
The recent paper by Prof. Brian Connelly, who is cross-appointed to the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management and ...
Brain waves make waves
2012-11-14
This press release is available in German.
Naturally, our brain activity waxes and wanes. When listening, this oscillation synchronizes to the sounds we are hearing. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences have found that this influences the way we listen. Hearing abilities also oscillate and depend on the exact timing of one's brain rhythms. This discovery that sound, brain, and behaviour are so intimately coupled will help us to learn more about listening abilities in hearing loss.
Our world is full of cyclic phenomena: For ...
USC scientists 'clone' carbon nanotubes to unlock their potential for use in electronics
2012-11-14
The heart of the computer industry is known as "Silicon Valley" for a reason. Integrated circuit computer chips have been made from silicon since computing's infancy in the 1960s. Now, thanks to a team of USC researchers, carbon nanotubes may emerge as a contender to silicon's throne.
Scientists and industry experts have long speculated that carbon nanotube transistors would one day replace their silicon predecessors. In 1998, Delft University built the world's first carbon nanotube transistors – carbon nanotubes have the potential to be far smaller, faster, and consume ...