It sounds like a horror story, but it’s true: brain volume decreases faster in those who complain about poor sleep quality.
The damage to health and quality of life that lack of sleep causes cannot be overestimated. People who suffer from sleep disorders or neglect proper sleep are more likely to get into traffic accidents and suffer from depression, lose sexual desire and gain weight, are more at risk of heart attack and stroke, think worse and look older than their years.
But that’s not all, as revealed by the recent work of Claire Sexton of Oxford and her colleagues, which is reported in the September issue of the journal Neurology*. Researchers have found a link between poor sleep quality and a decrease in brain volume, more precisely, the speed of this decrease, since, alas, we all are subject to it, alas, as we age.
To participate in the observations, they recruited 147 people aged 20 to 84 years and twice – with an interval of three and a half years – using MRI scans of their brains. Participants also completed a detailed questionnaire about sleep quality, which was measured by characteristics such as the time it took to fall asleep, nocturnal awakenings, and the use of sleeping pills, for example. Then the researchers compared one against the other and found that in those who sleep poorly, the decrease in the volume of the frontal, parietal and temporal lobes of the brain was more pronounced.
Modern scientific views associate the frontal lobe with the regulation of emotions, decision-making and coordination of movements, the parietal is considered the area where “letters and words add up to thoughts”, and the temporal – “responsible” for memory and learning ability.
The study by Sexton and her colleagues has so far only revealed a correlation, but has not established a causal relationship: maybe sleep disorders lead to changes in the brain, and maybe, conversely, an accelerated decrease in volumes causes poor sleep. However, the data obtained now consistently fit into the general trend indicated by other, earlier works. In particular, previous research has established a link between insufficient sleep and the rate of brain aging, as well as sleep disturbances and damage to some important neural clusters in the brain in older people, and in particular those suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.
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Therefore, Professor Louis Ptáček, a neurologist at the University of California at San Francisco, commenting on Sexton’s results, noted that he “could have predicted them.” At the same time, according to Ptacek, sleep is still incredibly poorly understood, “we know almost nothing about it, even at a basic, mechanical level: what it is and why we sleep.” Ptacek hopes that as more research emerges, people will start to realize the importance of sleep for health and take it more seriously.
In the meantime, we can all start with six simple signs of sleep deprivation: hunger, tearfulness, distraction, chills, clumsiness, and reluctance to have sex. If you began to notice these symptoms more often than usual, maybe you should sacrifice your evening watching TV shows and go to bed early?
* aan.com/PressRoom/Home/PressRelease/1305