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Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

science.org

261–270 of 325 posts

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TFA also acknowledges this: > There could well be many other functions that have since joined in with the sleep cycle (such as memory consolidation), but the authors hypothesize that mitochondrial function is the process that underlies all of them. If you need oxygen, then you need sleep!

> If you need oxygen, then you need sleep! Do plants sleep? Don't some insects, like flies, live without any sleep?

I think it should have been “If you need oxygen and have a CNS, then you need sleep.” Other tissues can take oxidative break during wakefulness, but since CNS is _generating_ wakefulness, if it takes a break, by construction there is sleep.

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#262
post #254
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I'm awake for a very long time (32hrs+) it feels like there is poison built up in my mind, then sleep clears it up/feel better. Also if you lift in the mornings you feel lack of sleep/alcohol sleep disruption.

> it feels like there is poison built up in my mind, then sleep clears it up/feel better. I'm not sure how common this is, but I feel this acutely after sustained mental exertion (e.g. reading informational material for a few hours). A deep 15 minute nap takes the feeling away completely without any grogginess.

> A deep 15 minute nap takes the feeling away

Almost the same here but it's not a deep nap for me. I relax, start seeing dream-like images in my mind (yet still drifting into-out of conscious awareness), then in ~15 minutes I feel energy build up and am ready to jump up and go.

I would say that the darn alarm clock prevented me from completing a sleep cycle properly in the morning, and now I did complete it and made my brain happy.

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#263
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One best things about getting laid off from work is that one get to sleep as long as one want in the morning!

I don't think this person has children :P

My teenage daughter is happy to sleep until 3:00pm every day during the summer vacation and then stay up late night after night. It's probably genetic, my wife does the same when she can.

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#264
post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being addicted to workahol means they aren't able to enjoy other things. Your comment is like saying "maybe alcoholics just enjoy drinking".

I love working and I love doing other things too. Working doesn't get in the way of doing other things I also love. Maybe alcoholics do enjoy drinking. But working 60 hours a week isn't going to cause brain damage and liver failure on its own. Productivity isn't a chemical or vice.

> working 60 hours a week isn't going to cause brain damage

If it causes you to sleep too little, it just may.

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#265
post #5

So the ancient mystery of why we need sleep might have just been answered. The paper shows that cell‑autonomous mild uncoupling in Drosophila sleep‑inducing neurons -- via Ucp4A/Ucp4C -- keeps the flies awake by lowering mitochondrial Δp and therefore electron leak. This suggests a biochemical rationale for sleep -- which is postponed by the uncoupler. That form of pharmacological manipulation is also a very local in…

> So the ancient mystery of why we need sleep might have just been answered. I would be very surprised if sleep would serve only one purpose. In complex interconnected systems you usually don't get far with monocausal explanations.

I wouldn't. The current theories on sleep and "brain needs sleep" always struck me as a stopgap theory. Even spent some time with GPT arguing about it and never felt fully convinced, like the real reason was still missing.

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love working and I love doing other things too. Working doesn't get in the way of doing other things I also love. Maybe alcoholics do enjoy drinking. But working 60 hours a week isn't going to cause brain damage and liver failure on its own. Productivity isn't a chemical or vice.

> working 60 hours a week isn't going to cause brain damage If it causes you to sleep too little, it just may.

you cut out "on its own" from that quote, which I think is an important qualifier.

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#267
post #254
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I'm awake for a very long time (32hrs+) it feels like there is poison built up in my mind, then sleep clears it up/feel better. Also if you lift in the mornings you feel lack of sleep/alcohol sleep disruption.

> it feels like there is poison built up in my mind, then sleep clears it up/feel better. I'm not sure how common this is, but I feel this acutely after sustained mental exertion (e.g. reading informational material for a few hours). A deep 15 minute nap takes the feeling away completely without any grogginess.

How do you ensure you are asleep for 15 minutes? Do you have a smart watch that detects when you drift asleep and can start a timer then? Or are you not losing consciousness, but are you simply closing your eyes and meditating?

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#268
post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it feels like there is poison built up in my mind, then sleep clears it up/feel better. I'm not sure how common this is, but I feel this acutely after sustained mental exertion (e.g. reading informational material for a few hours). A deep 15 minute nap takes the feeling away completely without any grogginess.

How do you ensure you are asleep for 15 minutes? Do you have a smart watch that detects when you drift asleep and can start a timer then? Or are you not losing consciousness, but are you simply closing your eyes and meditating?

For these instances where I get urgently fatigued ("brain tired") in the daytime, I close my eyes and fall asleep in 1-2 minutes. I'm definitely unconscious. I don't set any alarm and naturally wake up in ~15 minutes. It's been as short as 8 minutes, or as long as 30, but probably averages around 15. "Body tired" is different and requires the normal multiple hours of sleep.

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#270
post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By which criteria? They do respond to daily cycles. How do you know they do not sleep?

> Across the animal kingdom sleep satisfies most, though not necessarily all, of the following criteria: (1) decreased brain arousal and its behavioral correlate, decreased responsiveness to an animal’s surroundings, which distinguishes sleep from immobile wakefulness (also known as rest); (2) electrical changes in the brain’s activity patterns relative to the waking state; (3) behavioral quiescence, often accompanie…

Across animal kingdom.

And you don't think different criteria might apply to plants? I mean, look, we are just discovering how plants function as a society. They are immobile and 4 and 5 might be caused by the fact that an animal is mobile, at least for the most examples, but where not, it can at least react in some manner. Plants have a very very slow reaction time so to them 4 and 5 don't apply even in waking condition, I mean unless you consider several hours to be a reaction. Let's be frank: we don't know (yet).

What I don't appreciate is an outright dismissal "plants do not sleep".

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