To function, the brain needs to constantly renew its glial cells, which serve to protect and support nervous tissue by eliminating dead cells, to replace them with oxygen when we sleep. Thus the brain can function properly. Well, Italian scientists have looked into this phenomenon, to find out if when you lack sleep, the brain acts the same or not. The answer is yes, and that's not really good news according to Michele Bellesi, the director of these studies. Because when you lack sleep, certain synapses (the links between neurons) could be eaten up by glial cells.
To achieve these results, the research team studied the brain of a group of mice. Some mice slept 6 hours a day, others were awake in periods, the last stayed awake 5 days in a row. The finding? When mice lack sleep too regularly, the brain continues its cleaning phase (which should only be done when we sleep) and destroys certain bad cells. Michele Bellesi explains that this phenomenon can be dangerous, if we too often do not get enough sleep, because too many synapses would be destroyed. However, this experiment is still to be verified for certain points in humans, but it could make it possible to advance research on diseases like Alzheimer's (because one of the main causes of this disease is the destruction of these synapses).
In any case, we're going to be even more careful to sleep well!
