Sleep loss may cause brain damage

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Greg Bernhardt
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Shift workers beware: Sleep loss may cause brain damage, new research says
http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/19/health/sleep-loss-brain-damage/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Are you a truck driver or shift worker planning to catch up on some sleep this weekend?
Cramming in extra hours of shut-eye may not make up for those lost pulling all-nighters, new research indicates.
The damage may already be done -- brain damage, that is, said neuroscientist Sigrid Veasey from the University of Pennsylvania.
Alzheimer's & Sleep
The widely held idea that you can pay back a sizeable "sleep debt" with long naps later on seems to be a myth, she said in a study published this week in the Journal of Neuroscience.
Long-term sleep deprivation saps the brain of power even after days of recovery sleep, Veasey said. And that could be a sign of lasting brain injury.
 

Discussion

Biology news on Phys.org
Not surprising to me. I subscribe to the restorative theory of sleep.

http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v14/n6/images/nrn3494-f2.jpg
 
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Indeed not that surprising: even fruit flies suffer from sleep deprivation. Great research though, the big question is now: how can damage be prevented? Could short naps be sufficient to counter negative effects?
 
Monique said:
Indeed not that surprising: even fruit flies suffer from sleep deprivation. Great research though, the big question is now: how can damage be prevented? Could short naps be sufficient to counter negative effects?

Longer term overnight trafficking processes suggest to me that there would be some maintenance processes that require a sufficient amount of time. Whether or not they're important to prevention of tissue damage I'm not sure:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3564590/figure/F8/
 
Interesting, some companies it seems to me intuitively know that sleep deprivation is harmful to workers and thus considered it in their policy like shift rotation, maximum 12- hour duty and multiple/flexible day-offs. If proven on human specimen, perhaps such aforementioned company policy will be enacted into labor laws? Maybe not.

Sleep deprivation also causes accumulation of metabolic waste in the brain of mice specimen... http://www.kurzweilai.net/how-the-brain-takes-out-the-trash-while-we-sleep/comment-page-1