The Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Teenagers
Have you ever wondered why your teenage kids never want to get up in the morning? They would sleep in all day if they were allowed to but at the other end of the day you have a real battle on your hands, trying to get them to go to bed. Ultimately, they are not getting the sleep they need and you know they are “burning the candle at both ends” and you are not wrong there.
The effects of sleep deprivation on teenagers becomes apparent during the week days when they eventually manage to drag themselves out of bed and get to the breakfast table. Then with only time for a quick drink and maybe some cereal before they have to rush off, to get to school on time. They then struggle to keep awake during their lessons and find it hard to concentrate. The effects of sleep deprivation long term could eventually result in damage to the wiring of their brain, says a new study.
Researchers in the US have said that short-term sleep deprivation prevents balanced growth and depletion of brain synapses, these are the connections between the nerve cells where communication occurs and the research suggests that teenagers could suffer negative effects for the rest of their lives.
Lead researcher Dr Chiara Cirelli said “one possible implication of our study is that if you lose too much sleep during adolescence, especially chronically, there may be lasting consequences in terms of the wiring of the brain” The study was carried out on mice at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and appears in the current issue of Nature Neuroscience.
Professor Cirelli also said, “Adolescence is a sensitive period of development during which the brain changes dramatically”. There is a massive remodelling of nerve circuits, with many new synapses formed and then eliminated.’
Professor Cirelli’s and fellow members of the research team needed to ascertain how the developing adolescent brain was affected by alterations in the sleeping and waking cycle and although the reasons remain unclear, it is during the adolescence years that mental illnesses can emerge, illnesses such as schizophrenia and bouts of depression.
Earlier research into molecular and electro-physiological studies found that during sleep, synapses in the adult rodents become weaker and smaller, and this is presumed, to be preparing them for another period of wakefulness when synapses will strengthen again and become larger in response to ever-changing experiences and learning. They call this the synaptic homeostasis hypothesis of sleep.
Using a two-photon microscope, researchers indirectly followed the growth and retraction of synapses by counting dendritic spines, the elongated structures that contain synapses and thus allow brain cells to receive impulses from other brain cells. They compared adolescent mice that for eight to 10 hours were spontaneously awake, allowed to sleep or forced to stay awake.
The live images showed that being asleep or awake made a difference in the dynamic adolescent mouse brain: the overall density of dendritic spines fell during sleep and rose during spontaneous or forced wakefulness. ‘These results using acute manipulations of just eight to 10 hours show that the time spent asleep or awake affects how many synapses are being formed or removed in the adolescent brain,’ Professor Cirelli says ‘the important next question is what happens with chronic sleep restriction, a condition that many adolescents are often experiencing.’
The experiments are under way, but Prof Cirelli can’t predict the outcome.’ It could be that the changes are benign, temporary and reversible,’ she says, ‘or there could be lasting consequences for brain maturation and functioning.’
So, if you had ever wondered what the effects of sleep deprivation on teenagers were, then now you can say “if you don’t snooze, you lose” and the next time you find yourself getting annoyed at your teen son or daughter languishing the day away, tucked up in their bed then let them carry on snoozing undisturbed…..They are growing a brain!
