The Benefits of Sleep

           “If you die in your dream then you’ll die in real life too!” This was a belief I often heard whispered with reverence on the playground in my younger years. Older kids would nod sagely, as if they had a friend who had died in such a manner. For as kids, sleep was special and mysterious- and we all wanted more of it. But as we grow older, the specialness of sleep seems to fade as we focus more on getting at least the minimal amount of sleep needed for functioning. According to the Center for Disease Control, one in three Americans is sleep deprived, usually chronically. And this lack of sleep, however, impacts the important role sleep has in maintaining our mental health. Without adequate rest, we are prone to act in irrational and non-adaptive ways (such as binging on sweets or becoming easily upset).

        Although much research has focused on the detrimental effects of sleep deprivation, further research is need to understand what happens during this portion of non-consciousness. As far as we can tell, every living thing from trees to flies has some form of sleep or quiescence (quiet resting) during which it recovers from previous activity. In smaller, simpler organisms, this quiescence might only include clearing cellular debris but in more complicated organisms this sleep period is also important for changes in the brain. In humans, sleep is a privileged period of time when the brain doesn’t have to take in external information. Instead the mind prioritizes shuffling and re-organizing information learned during the day. We call this process of organizing and solidifying information memory consolidation. Most scientists agree that this process is always going on, but is especially prevalent during sleep. Memory consolidation is one reason why consistent sleep is so important for our daily lives.

        When we are sleep deprived, we restrict our brain’s ability to organize and prepare for the next day. This means that we are more likely to be forgetful, impulsive, and moody. College students who assume that they will do better in the exam by pulling an all-nighter are actually making it more difficult for themselves to succeed. Sleep deprivation is especially damaging because the part of our brain necessary for forming memories, the hippocampus, is particularly sensitive to sleep deprivation. It’s almost like a switch where at a certain point you are unable to learn and retain almost any information you are studying late into the night.

In addition to impairing memory, not getting enough sleep can also lead to motor control problems. If you’ve ever noticed that you seem to be less coordinated after staying up all night (or not getting enough sleep for a prolonged period of time), the loss of sleep is probably to blame. Coordinated motor control, especially for fine motor control is actually a complicated mental ability. So when you are sleep deprived, you aren’t able to respond as quickly or accurately to your surroundings. This problem has serious implications for professional truckers or others who drive long distances. In America, more than 1550 people are now killed by sleep-deprived automotive drivers.

The above mentioned problems are only a few of the consequences of sleep deprivation on the brain. In recent years there has been an escalating interest in the cognitive effects of sleep and why sleep is so important for a huge variety of mental abilities. But despite the accumulating evidence of sleep’s importance, Americans still tend to habitually stay up late and rise too early- putting us at a constant disadvantage. Thankfully, there are a few simple tricks that have been shown to help the chronically sleep deprived get some rest. First, going to sleep and waking at a consistent time each day helps us set our internal clock so it’s easier to fall asleep and we get quality rest. Another simple trick is treating your bedroom as a place reserved for sleep. Avoid watching TV or playing video games in bed as this creates a mental association between your bed and these activities instead of sleep. These tricks, along with avoiding caffeine in the evening, can greatly improve your ability to get restful sleep.

So maybe the schoolyard wisdom about dying in your dreams doesn’t hold up to modern science. In fact, the relationship seems to go the other way: a prolonged lack of sleep can actually cause death. But schoolyard children are right to think of sleep with awe and wonder.

There is some truth in the thought that sleep is a special period of time important to our health and well-being. We should retain some of that awe and wonder from our childhood years and realize how special sleep is.


Footnotes:
I would like to say a special word of thanks to ComSciCon16 for helping me craft this piece. It's a wonderful convention/program that has provided me with lots of feedback, as well as helping me make connections with other interested science communicators.  

Pesky Programming, Massive Magnets, & Exciting Exploration

It's my second week in Lübeck, and I feel like I'm finally starting to settle in properly. Although moving slow, the project I'm working on is really progressing. My first week was almost all about making experiment design decisions while this past week has been all about implementing them. Well, that and testing out the equipment. It took me longer to figure out some programming quirks for an aspect of our task to run properly on the scanner computer.

The entrance to the MRI control room

Also, I'm sad to report that it seems I won't get to see what my brain looks like after all. My copper IUD is only rated as "MR safe" for up to 1.5 Tesla magnets (that's a measure of strength of the magnetic field) and we use a 3 Tesla magnet here. So although there's basically no evidence that I could be harmed by the electromagnetic field, once again I'm stuck in the control room and not able to get pretty images of my brain.

Anyways, beyond my personal disappointment, everything has been going really well.  I think with our current time line we shouldn't have too much trouble collecting enough participants in the time allotted. It helps that within the next week, Iliana (a fellow NU grad student) will arrive in Hamburg so we can really get running. In the mean time, it's pre-piloting, correcting, and more piloting for me! Oh! And I'm giving a short talk/presentation at an MRI colloquia as the official proposal to start running subjects. I'm more than a little anxious, but I think that it should go fine.

While my weekdays have been completely consumed with research, my weekends are reserved for exploration and fun! Last weekend, I spent Saturday exploring the city of Lübeck and getting my bearings. I also went to a fascinating museum about the Hanseatic League.

The famous Holstentor- or Holsten Gate- of Lübeck

Downtown Lübeck

On Sunday, I took a 30km (10 mile) ride on my trusty bicycle to the beach town of Travemünde. The ride itself was mostly through woods or around farms so it was a beautiful way to see the countryside. It was misty when I got to the beach, but I enjoyed wandering around and having lunch before cycling back home.

Travemunde

Travemunde

Sign reads "We live here"

This past weekend, I went a bit further afield. On Saturday, I journeyed into Hamburg- Germany's second largest city after Berlin. I can't say I got to see all of it, or even a good portion. I mainly spent time in the Planten un Blomen and Miniatur Wunderland.  The first is a huge park in the city that is absolutely lovely and peaceful, the second is my dream come true. A museum totally composed of miniature worlds and running trains. I can't even begin to describe how delightful it was! There were models of Switzerland, Hamburg, and the US, plus all kinds of fictional places.  I spent hours there and didn't even see all of the details. Did I mention the model builders also clearly have a sense of humor?

The creators have weird senses of humor- peeping monks watching a scantily clad woman try to fix her car 

I love the cyclist race with the kids trailing behind 

Just to give you an idea of the size of the displays- Swiss mountains

Anyways, yesterday I went to Schwerin for a quieter adventure than the big city. It's a town south east of Lübeck and famous for it's castle surrounded by lakes. It honestly looks like something out of a fairytale. Once again, I was drawn to some quiet park space to relax after seeing the castle. So overall, I must say my weekend adventures have been really lovely!

Schwerin, Germany

The fairytale castle- Schwerin

My best childhood friend, Courtney

And as a last note, last week I had the pleasure of my childhood best friend once again meeting me in Europe! Courtney stopped by for a few days in Lübeck before continuing her travels before her big graduation ceremony at Cambridge. So congrats to Courtney for finishing her post-bacc degree! I'm so happy for you!

Cheers to you Courtney!

Cross Country Collaboration

Yes, those wires are electrified...

This past Saturday, I completed the 11 mile/22 obstacle course of the Chicago Tough Mudder.

We  survived!

The very next day, I left the country for Lübeck, Germany.

Situated along the Baltic Sea, Lübeck was once a powerhouse of the Hanseatic League. 

My head is still spinning from the quick turn around! It's surreal to be sitting at a new desk at the Universität zu Lübeck, and yet be working on a project that I've had on my to-do list for months. Sometime earlier this year, my advisor broached the topic of collaborating with Dr. Heldmann & Dr. Münte on a sleep fMRI project. Of course, I immediately volunteered myself and started working on the study design, along with another graduate student from my lab. However, I'm the first of the two of us to make it to Lübeck. My lab mate wont join me in Germany for another 2 weeks, by which time I hope to have finished piloting and be ready to move into data collection.

Most of my time so far has been dedicated to finding the appropriate stimuli for German participants. We piloted the behavioral aspects of the study in Chicago but it seems famous locations to us aren't nearly as well known here. That being said, most of the preparation I did at Northwestern has ended up being very helpful.

My new ride for the next month, she's old but strong!

Our next step will be to set up everything in the fMRI scanner and make sure we have our timing down. While piloting a few different sequences, I'll finally get to be the participant in the scanner! After all these years (5 years!) of being involved with imaging research, I'll finally get to take a peek at my brain! I can't tell you how exciting that is to me! And after we sort out how we will be collecting the brain images, we'll get right to the piloting phase!

But that's looking pretty far ahead. I haven't even been in Lübeck for a full week yet. So far, I've managed to figure out the grocery store and purchased an old bicycle so I can bike to work rather than taking the bus. So for my immediate future, my current plan is to finally explore the city this weekend and enjoy the fact that I'm living abroad!

Anthropomorphizing Science

One of the graduate classes I'm currently taking is called Biology of Sleep. It's a new class through the neuroscience department, so we don't have a rigorous structure. Each week, we discuss a new topic in relation to the biological basis of sleep and/or circadian rhythms. When I signed up, I thought this class would be right up my alley. I have a relatively strong background in sleep and my advanced biology classes are only 2 years in my past and thus relatively fresh.

Super cute idea, the rest are at: http://kcd-elements.tumblr.com/

Turns out, I was absolutely wrong. This class has been incredibly difficult, especially when we have to read papers with terminology I can't even recall. This week, we focused on sleep, metabolism and obesity so I was expecting something about eating behaviors changing with a lack of sleep. Instead, we got this. I didn't know I was signing up for advanced genetics and biochemistry when I decided to take the class.

So in reading these highly technical and complicated papers, I've taken to anthropomorphizing ligands and kinases to tell myself a story and follow the molecular cycles. I create heros and villians who steal or give electrons in redox reactions. It's a form of mental shorthand for me to get the gist on these otherwise extremely difficult papers.

This is the kind of thing I memorize using stories

But I wonder, is this a good thing to do? Sure, it helps get the 'basic storyline' of the paper and what's happening in the cell, but is this a good way to teach students? I came up with the technique for my own personal use, but I wonder if professors find such an idea useful or not. The downside is that by creating a story, you give agency to things which do not think or feel. ATP doesn't get its feelings hurt when it phosphorylates and becomes ADP. Lysosomes aren't homicidal killers of proteins. These molecular components don't have feelings or motivations, which a story implies.

So what's your opinion? Is it worth learning information in a story format helpful for memory retention? Or harmful because of the associated assumptions?

Sleep Conference 2013- The Stuff of Dreams

I can't believe I'm here in Baltimore, MD at the annual Sleep Conference! This is my first real academic conference and already I'm exhausted and delighted. There are talks and posters over an entire spectrum of sleep-related fields (cognition, disease, metabolic rates, etc.)

While I've had a full day of presentations, I think my favorite topic of the day has been sleep, circadian rhythms, and metabolism. I suppose it could be because this is the issue most relevant to my current lifestyle. As an undergraduate student, twice a year the dreaded finals swing around and you find people living in the library and barely sleeping. These same students, afraid to waste precious procrastinating studying time, bring boxes of goldfish and coolers filled with red bull to sustain them. Personally, I try to avoid this behavior but I'm not always successful. And it's usually on nights when I'm scarfing down a whole box of cookies that I wonder, 'how the heck can I be so hungry when I've been sitting perfectly still for the last 8 hours?'

Well I'm not saying that the Sleep Conference is my personal answer to this question, but there has been quite a bit of recent research linking sleep deprivation with increased hunger, caloric consumption, and (in the end) weight gain. What I found most interesting was that one study (which I believe came out of this link) showed that sleep deprived participants did consume more calories, but statistically consumed less calories per waking hour than non-sleep restricted participants. This indicates to me that caloric intake isn't the whole story, and perhaps metabolic rates are shifted because of the lack of sleep so that the calories consumed are not efficiently put to use.

Mind you, this is just my take on a particular presentation and I suggest checking out original sources such as this to get the full story. Please feel free to chime in on the comments below as well!

That necessary function- sleep

Call me a nerd if you must, but I'm so fascinated by sleep!  I'm beginning to think it will be the topic of my senior thesis and possibly future research (as I want to research and become a professor).  There are just SO many pieces to sleep that we have the tiniest understanding of.  For example, some animals including rodents will die if they aren't allowed to sleep.  Their bodies freak out and start to just shut down.  While there's no evidence that humans will die from lack of sleep, severe cognitive impairments and hallucinations start to appear not too long into sleep deprivation.  And do you know why?

Most of the time we only have this simple understanding
of sleep.

Well.... neither do I actually.  Or scientists if truth be told.  There's no elimination of a toxin that only happens at night.  No replenishment of some hormone for cognitive function.  We just start to fall apart.

Here's another mystery for consideration- night terrors.  These tend to happen in young children.  During non-REM sleep, sufferers start screaming often in a bloodcurdling manner.  Parents have trouble waking up their terrified children and when they do, the sufferers often can't explain what put them in such a terrified state.  It's not believed to be caused by dreams which typically happen during REM sleep.  And the next morning shows no ill-effects from the night's misadventure.

But our biological understanding of this disorder is practically non-existent.
~We don't know why they occur or how.
~They aren't a symptom for any future psychosis or other mental illnesses, but why haven't they been genetically selected against?
~They can occur in adults but are much more prevalent in children.  Why?

And I suppose you could say I have a vested interest in the topic of night terrors.  Around age 4, I began to get them with extreme frequency.  And I'm talking about multiple episodes a night.  This continued, even after medication, for the next several years.  Though the frequency subsided, I still will occasionally have night terrors.  I'm sure it drives my roommate crazy, but if I'm over stressed or have been overstimulated throughout the course of the day, I'm much more likely to have them.

And this one disease is only a tiny facet of the research that still needs to be done in the field of sleep.  I can't wait to see where the research progresses!