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Sleep Flushes Toxins from the Brain

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Sleep Flushes Toxins from the Brain

#31

Post by comrade_ogilvy »

sillysaurus2 wrote: post #22
rusew wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rats die "within a matter of weeks" if they do not sleep: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/01664328950...

Curses, you've made me break my "No HN on my work computer" anti-procrastination method. At least it's been only 15 minutes though. Direct link to the research: http://www.gwern.net/docs/algernon/1995-rechtschaffen.pdf The paper is titled "Sleep deprivation in the rat by the disk-over-water method." As the name implies, rats are suspended on a disk over water. They can't fall asleep without starting to drown. Thus th…

Thanks for all the info!

It seems possible that torturing animals for days on end could be fatal to the victim. I hesitate to suggest to try adding doses of sleep to this diabolic regimen, for fear it would be attempted.

Re: Sleep Flushes Toxins from the Brain

#32

Post by VladRussian2 »

comrade_ogilvy wrote: post #31
sillysaurus2 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curses, you've made me break my "No HN on my work computer" anti-procrastination method. At least it's been only 15 minutes though. Direct link to the research: http://www.gwern.net/docs/algernon/1995-rechtschaffen.pdf The paper is titled "Sleep deprivation in the rat by the disk-over-water method." As the name implies, rats are suspended on a disk over water. They can't fall asleep without starting to drown. Thus th…

Thanks for all the info! It seems possible that torturing animals for days on end could be fatal to the victim. I hesitate to suggest to try adding doses of sleep to this diabolic regimen, for fear it would be attempted.

>It seems possible that torturing animals for days on end could be fatal to the victim.

yes, all the things we humans call science...

Re: Sleep Flushes Toxins from the Brain

#33

Post by azakai »

sillysaurus2 wrote: post #11

A "toxin" is something which is toxic to a system. But our knowledge of the brain is so primitive that we can't reasonably claim to know which chemicals are toxic at tiny, long-term dosage levels, unless it leads to death. There is no evidence that it's possible to die directly from sleep deprivation. Therefore this seems a dubious headline.

> A "toxin" is something which is toxic to a system. But our knowledge of the brain is so primitive that we can't reasonably claim to know which chemicals are toxic at tiny, long-term dosage levels, unless it leads to death.

If it leads to harm or death of individual neurons, we have lots of knowledge about such things. For example, we know that glutamate is toxic in large doses to neurons,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excitotoxicity

Re: Sleep Flushes Toxins from the Brain

#34

Post by rosser »

sillysaurus2 wrote: post #11

A "toxin" is something which is toxic to a system. But our knowledge of the brain is so primitive that we can't reasonably claim to know which chemicals are toxic at tiny, long-term dosage levels, unless it leads to death. There is no evidence that it's possible to die directly from sleep deprivation. Therefore this seems a dubious headline.

There is no evidence that it's possible to die directly from sleep deprivation.

Perhaps not directly, as the actual cause of death in FFI is unknown, but:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_familial_insomnia

Re: Sleep Flushes Toxins from the Brain

#35

Post by sillysaurus2 »

scott_s wrote: post #17
sillysaurus2 wrote: post #11

A "toxin" is something which is toxic to a system. But our knowledge of the brain is so primitive that we can't reasonably claim to know which chemicals are toxic at tiny, long-term dosage levels, unless it leads to death. There is no evidence that it's possible to die directly from sleep deprivation. Therefore this seems a dubious headline.

The word "toxin" has become a signal for pseudoscientific medicine, so I also furrowed my brow at that. But the original use of the word is much more clear in context. From the abstract which tokenadult kindly linked to: Thus, the restorative function of sleep may be a consequence of the enhanced removal of potentially neurotoxic waste products that accumulate in the awake central nervous system. Also, regarding the…

Direct link to reference 7, "Familial and sporadic fatal insomnia": http://a.pomf.se/7Uu7.pdf

From the paper, "Phenotypic variability is another issue. In some patients, insomnia, one of the cardinal symptoms, was not reported."

The other half of that sentence is obviously "... but Dementia and death still occurred."

Therefore, this research demonstrates that fatal familial insomnia results in Dementia and death, but with insomnia as a secondary effect. The insomnia is a symptom, not the cause.

I'm only trying to show how tricky it is to base an argument on scientific research. There are all sorts of corner cases and gotchas. In this case, the fact that insomnia is unrelated to the Dementia and death is buried on page 8 of a 10-page article, embedded in a gigantic paragraph. A rather important point for such little treatment by the article!

Re: Sleep Flushes Toxins from the Brain

#36

Post by VladRussian2 »

foobarbazqux wrote: post #21
sillysaurus2 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of science is to never fall back on claims like "you'll probably get permanent brain damage" unless it's known what brain damage you may get, along with bounds on a confidence interval. Otherwise we're just philosophizing.

Well, it's a testable hypothesis. We will probably never test it in humans or higher mammals due to ethical concerns.

may be we willn't as we already did. Google "sleep deprivation experiment".

Re: Sleep Flushes Toxins from the Brain

#38

Post by sillysaurus2 »

rosser wrote: post #34
sillysaurus2 wrote: post #11

A "toxin" is something which is toxic to a system. But our knowledge of the brain is so primitive that we can't reasonably claim to know which chemicals are toxic at tiny, long-term dosage levels, unless it leads to death. There is no evidence that it's possible to die directly from sleep deprivation. Therefore this seems a dubious headline.

There is no evidence that it's possible to die directly from sleep deprivation. Perhaps not directly , as the actual cause of death in FFI is unknown, but: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_familial_insomnia

Actually, the insomnia isn't the cause of death. FFI is just a bad name for the disease. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6568961

Re: Sleep Flushes Toxins from the Brain

#39

Post by coolnow »

meowface wrote: post #23
foobarbazqux wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't sleep for long enough (about 7 days), you'll start to have visual and auditory hallucinations and also delusional thinking. You'll also experience severely reduced effectiveness of just about every system in your body. You might not die if you don't sleep for a year (say), but you'll probably get permanent brain damage.

Many people experience hallucinations if they stay awake for periods longer than 48 or even 36 hours.

I think i believe this. A friend of mine is a virgin to late nights and all nighters. We were studying one night trying to cram for a test and communicating every so often on WhatsApp. At around 12AM, he told me he thought he was hallucinating. I laughed as he was only up for like 14 hours. He fell asleep shortly thereafter.

Re: Sleep Flushes Toxins from the Brain

#40

Post by twistedpair »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #13
XorNot wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question on everyone's mind now is, can you bypass that need?

I have a sneaking suspicion that would be like pumping oxygen directly into the blood and then trying to hold your breath - even though you technically don't need to breathe, millions of years of evolutionary tricks will make sure you do. Try telling your brain that it does not need to sleep after 72 hours just because you have cleared up the toxins

"like pumping oxygen directly into the blood and then trying to hold your breath - even though you technically don't need to breathe"

It's not that simple. You need to get gases in and OUT. You also need more than O2. You need to clear CO2 as well as lactic acid and other biproducts. Some CO in the mix greatly assists exchange. Simply bubbling 02 into your blood is going to kill you with a blood clot. And, RBC's actually curl up into a cylinder shape in your pulmonary capillaries to maximize gas transfer, unlike when they're flying around your circulatory system. Pick up a physio textbook, they're a fun read.

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