SLEEP DEPRIVATION IMPAIRS BRAIN CELLS’ SELF-REPAIR ABILITY

People who do not get enough sleep are robbing their brains of the vital time they need to repair themselves, according to a new study. While we are awake, our brain cells are slowly accumulating DNA damage that can accumulate to unsafe levels and lead to problems.

However, every night we are granted a reprieve as the machinery of the cells perform vital maintenance work to ix issues that have accumulated during the day. The new work, which examined brain cells in ish, helps solve the longstanding mystery of why sleep is so crucial that we spend a third of our existence doing it. All animals with nervous systems, even the simplest creatures like jellyish and worms, enter sleep-like states at regular intervals. Professor Appelbaum called this damage “the price of wakefulness,” but said fortunately sleep provides a solution as the cells’ maintenance processes kick in.