Text written in Basque and translated automatically by Elia without any subsequent editing. SEE ORIGINAL

Sleep, necessary to restart the brain

A human study has found that cell connections remain active during sleepless nights.

Several studies have been conducted on sleep function, and it was believed that one of the potential effects of sleep was to restart connections between neurons and restore the balance of homeostasis. Homeostasis serves to maintain various body balances. For example: temperature, blood glucose and pH balance.

In a study conducted by researchers at the Forschungszentrum Jülich Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine in Germany, which has kept 40 people without sleep for 28 hours, they found that they had higher levels of a glycoprotein that appears in synapses between neurons in different areas of the brain. Elevated levels of glycoprotein have been measured in some important areas of memory management and information processing sites, for example.

Consequently, it is clear that sleep deprivation, in addition to causing fatigue, also affects the connections between neurons and that we need sleep to restart the brain and start the processes that manage internal balance.