The Science Behind Waking Up
By: Stephanie Jackson, KARK 4 News
Updated: August 16, 2007
"We are built to sleep 7 plus or minus one hour. If we're sleeping 3 and 4 hours a night, there's something really wrong... If we're sleeping 12 to 15 hours, there's something really wrong," says Dr. Edgar Garcia-Rill at UAMS Center for Translational Neuroscience.
In his team's first published report, researchers found something called electric coupling of brain cells.
"What this finding allows us to do is develop a lot more treatments, and stimulants, develop more stimulants that wake us up," Dr. Garcia-Rill says.
He also says, researchers are now looking at how some anesthetics put us to sleep, and how this electric coupling could help certain coma and stroke patients.
"After a massive stroke on the right side, you have spatial neglect, where the patient neglects that side of the world; never pays attention over there. Well, what we discovered is, that hemisphere, that half of the brain has fallen asleep."
Dr. Garcia-Rill says even for people without serious brain-related illness, like stroke, their findings have major implications.
"Because this is like your appetite, this is like your hormones. This is not anything fancy. This is a survival mechanism, and so, this is one of the first things to go, when the brain starts getting out of whack."
In his team's first published report, researchers found something called electric coupling of brain cells.
"What this finding allows us to do is develop a lot more treatments, and stimulants, develop more stimulants that wake us up," Dr. Garcia-Rill says.
He also says, researchers are now looking at how some anesthetics put us to sleep, and how this electric coupling could help certain coma and stroke patients.
"After a massive stroke on the right side, you have spatial neglect, where the patient neglects that side of the world; never pays attention over there. Well, what we discovered is, that hemisphere, that half of the brain has fallen asleep."
Dr. Garcia-Rill says even for people without serious brain-related illness, like stroke, their findings have major implications.
"Because this is like your appetite, this is like your hormones. This is not anything fancy. This is a survival mechanism, and so, this is one of the first things to go, when the brain starts getting out of whack."
