A connection between reward and sleep has been found by neuroscientists. New drugs that target this circuit could help insomniacs ease into sleep.
We’ve finally discovered how birds can sleep and fly at the same time without crashing
Frigatebirds spend weeks at a time flying over oceans in search for food — here’s how they sleep during this time.
Caffeine is essentially useless after three sleep-deprived nights
After only three nights of sleeping five hours or less, caffeine stops working.
Working graveyard shifts puts your heart at risk
Those who work odd hours in shifts risk heart complications.
Can’t get any rest when sleeping in a new place? It’s just your brain keeping you safe
A new study offers insight into why you might have a hard time sleeping on the first night in a new place: half of your brain stays awake to watch out for potential dangers.
Being a morning person might be coded in your genes
Some people have no trouble rising early and being productive, while others are most active during the evenings. This begs the question: are morning persons and night owls set apart by habit or biology? Habits certainly play a leading role, but all things being equal your genes might have a strong word to say in the matter.
Our ancestors probably didn’t get more sleep than the average American
Researchers at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) surveyed hunter-gather communities in Africa and South America which practice a traditional lifestyle thousands of years old and found they slept an average of six hours and 25 minutes per night.
Kids everywhere, rejoyce – science says you should get those “5 more minutes, mom!”
A recent study performed by researchers working at the University of Oxford, Harvard Medical School and the University of Nevada suggests that the current school and university start times have a damaging effect on the learning and health of students.
No laughing matter: scientists study the effects of laughing gas
Nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas, is a simple chemical composed of two nitrogen atoms and one oxygen atom (N2O). Despite being used as an anesthetic since the 1800s, the effects it has on the brain are not well understood. In a new study published in this week in Clinical Neurophysiology, MIT researchers reveal some key brainwave changes caused by the gas.
Is sleepwalking genetic? Study suggests it runs in the family
Canadian researchers found that kids born out of parents with a history of sleepwalking are more likely to experience somnambulism. They found 60% of kids whose both parents reported sleepwalking also took slumbering walks in the middle of the night, or seven times more likely than kids whose parents had no history of sleepwalking. Children with only one sleepwalking parent were three time more likely to sleep walk.
Study Confirms What Everyone Suspected: Teens Get Less and Less Sleep
US researchers have conducted a national survey and found that the percentage of U.S. teens who get seven or more hours of sleep is steadily decreasing. The number of teens suffering from sleep deprivation has continuously decreased, up to the point where less than half of all teens sleep adequately.
Sleep Scientists Suggest Starting Your Work Day a Bit Later
We’ve all experienced it – waking up early in the morning can be really hard, and even if you do wake up, you’re just not productive; and then, in the night, you just can’t go to sleep – you stay up too late, it gets even harder to wake up the next day and the cycle continues. Now, a group
What the World looks like when the Internet is asleep
There are over 4 billion IP addresses registered all over the globe and this number is constantly growing as developing countries get wired and more people use smartphones and tablets. The internet isn’t the same all over the world (yet) and activity heavily fluctuates from day to night. A new study mapped the world’s internet activity using an extremely simple
Automated tasks are still processed while you sleep
Despite an incredible body of work dedicated to researching what goes inside the brain while we sleep, consensus among neuroscientists suggests we’re just beginning to scratch the surface. For instance, we’ve yet to answer a fundamental question: why do we need sleep? We all agree that we needed it – going without sleep for long periods of time can bring
Newly discovered ‘sleep node’ in the brain puts you to sleep without sedatives
Neuroscientists at University of Buffalo have identified a sleep-promoting circuit inside the brainstem or the primitive part of the brain, whose activity appears to be both necessary and sufficient to produce deep sleep. This is only the second ‘sleep node’ in the mammalian brain that was identified to serve this function. To demonstrate the sleep node’s function, the researchers used
Scientists discover why some people need less sleep than others
Scientists have figured out why a small percentage of people require less than six hours of sleep, whereas the vast majority of humans need at least 8 hours a night to thrive.
Pulling all-nighters makes it likely to recall false memories
Our memories are plastic and as such are constantly updated and refreshed every time we recall a past event. In this process, misinformation can slip to the point that false memories can form. A new study found that sleep deprivation significantly increases the chance of a person to develop false memories.
Does the Moon actually affect our sleep? The answer is likely no, study shows
The Moon and sleep For centuries, people have thought that the Moon affects sleep patterns. But does it really? Many people report increased sleepiness when there is a full moon, and there have even been some studies linking the Moon with sleep patterns. However, a new study conducted by researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich did not
Lucid dreaming easily triggered by zapping the brain at 40 Hz
Some people have very vivid dreams, others can’t remember a thing when they wake up about what they’ve dreamed the night before. It’s said that by studying your dreams, you in fact learn more about your true inner self since dreams are your subconscious’ projections, genuine and unaltered. What happens when you’re fully aware you’re dreaming and control what’s happening around
Novel treatment may cure people’s phobias during sleep
We sleep for roughly a third of our lifetime. All complex organisms sleep, one way or the other, and clearly this is a highly important aspect of biological functioning, otherwise nature wouldn’t had allow it. Oddly enough, we still know very little about what happens during sleep and it’s key functions. For one, it’s been proven that sleep plays a