It’s often said that having a sound sleep helps in rejuvenating the body. And now, a new research has put more emphasis on this subject. A team of researchers from the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge have discovered that sleep allows immune cells to do maintenance work on the brain. These cells are active when a person is sleeping and attend to the regular wear and tear of the brain. The new research done on mouse models suggests that specialised immune cells keep the brain in good working order. According to Medical News Today, lead author Professor Ania Majewska said, “It has largely been assumed that the dynamic movement of microglial processes is not sensitive to the behavioural state of the animal. This research shows that the signals in our brain, that modulate the sleep and awake state, also act as a switch that turns the immune system off and on”.“This work suggests that the enhanced remodelling of neural circuits and repair of lesions during sleep may be mediated in part by the ability of microglia to dynamically interact with the brain. Altogether, this research also shows that microglia are exquisitely sensitive to signals that modulate brain function and that microglial dynamics and functions are modulated by the behavioural state of the animal,” explains first author Rianne Stowell, Ph.D.The findings add to the evidence that mechanisms related to sleep play an essential role in ensuring that the brain receives necessary repairs and continues to function correctly.This meant that during states of arousal and wakefulness, the immune cells could not respond appropriately and perform maintenance on brain cell connections. “These results indicate that microglial roles in surveillance and synaptic plasticity in the mouse brain are modulated by noradrenergic tone fluctuations between arousal states and emphasize the need to understand the effect of disruptions of adrenergic signalling in neurodevelopment and neuropathology”, said the study.Studies show that sleep loss and poor-quality sleep also lead to accidents and injuries on the job. In one study, workers who complained about excessive daytime sleepiness had significantly more work accidents, particularly repeated work accidents. They also had more sick days per accident.Sleep plays a critical role in thinking and learning. Lack of sleep hurts these cognitive processes in many ways. First, it impairs attention, alertness, concentration, reasoning, and problem solving. This makes it more difficult to learn efficiently. The amount of sleep you need varies significantly over the course of your lifetime. It depends on your age and activity level as well as your general health and lifestyle habits. For instance, during periods of stress or illness, you may feel an increased need for sleep. But although sleep needs differ over time and from person to person, experts typically recommend that adults should sleep between seven and nine hours each night.When it comes to sleep, can you have too much of a good thing? It’s true a good night’s sleep is essential for health. But oversleeping has been linked to a host of medical problems, including diabetes, heart disease, and increased risk of death.Researchers are careful to note, however, that two other factors — depression and low socioeconomic status — are strongly associated with oversleeping. Those two factors may be the reason for the observed negative health effects. For example, people of lower socioeconomic status may have less access to health care and therefore more undiagnosed illnesses, such as heart disease, which, in turn, may cause oversleeping.
