Scientists at the University of Alberta have found that there are significant differences in the way our brains function depending on whether we’re early risers or night owls.

Neuroscientists in the Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation looked at two groups of people: those who wake up early and feel most productive in the morning, and those who were identified as evening people, those who typically felt livelier at night. Study participants were initially grouped after completing a standardized questionnaire about their habits.

Using magnetic resonance imaging-guided brain stimulation, scientists tested muscle torque and the excitability of pathways through the spinal cord and brain. They found that morning people’s brains were most excitable at 9 a.m. This slowly decreased through the day. It was the polar opposite for evening people, whose brains were most excitable at 9 p.m.

Other major findings:

* Evening people became physically stronger throughout the day, but the maximum amount of force morning people could produce remained the same.

* The excitability of reflex pathways that travel through the spinal cord increased over the day for both groups.

These findings show that nervous-system functions are different and have implications for maximizing human performance.

Their findings were published in the June edition of the Journal of Biological Rhythms.

The research team, included students Alex Tamm, Olle Lagerquist, technician Alex Ley and neuroscientist Dave Collins.

Video footage

Source:
Quinn Phillips
University of Alberta

Soaring humidity levels on a balmy summers evening are frequently the cause of discomfort when sleeping and also loss of sleep. It is highly recommended that for this problem people choose to use a home dehumidifier. For some people they might think that this is going a bit too far but take a look at the negative effects of long term excess humidity:

Disrupted sleep patterns, allergy problems surface due to an increase in dust mite populations, damage can be caused to wallpaper, wood finishes and painted surfaces i.e. Blistering because of condensation that may accumulate on the surface of water pipes inddors and occasionally on walls themselves. Any metals in the house may also rust, irrepairable damage can also be caused to electrical aplliances plus cause much danger not forgetting the likelihood of developing musty smells that can come from the existence of mildew, mould and fungus that may also damage your health.

The humidity level that will be most comfortable is between 40 and 50 percent. Air dehumidifiers can help maintain those levels twenty four hours a day. However selecting the most dehumidifier is not always that easy. As there are a wide variety of different makes and models on the market. Most manufacturers state what size room a dehumidifier is intended for but in reality because humidity levels alter a great deal between rooms it is not the best way to gauge which dehumidifier you ought to select.

A more preferrable question is: “About how much water do I need to remove from the air?”. From this answer you can then view the dehumidifer information to discover the one that gets rid of the most moisture from the enviroment each day, this figure is normally given by most manufacturers and is a fair guide, however be aware that both air flow and air temperature play a role in the dehumidifiers capabilities. Once you have figured out how much water per day you would like to remove from the are you are in a much better position to start shopping.

It is also helpful to identify the source of your high humidity, if it is an ongoing problem such as a leaky roof, bad plumbing and so on which cannot be fixed immediately/if ever then you are going to need a more powerful home dehumidifier. If the problem is infrequent then a smaller dehumidifier may be enough to rectify the situation.

Furthermore here are a few features to look out for if you decide to purchase a air dehumidifier:

A continuous drainage feature will mean you don’t have to keep emptying the tank, or at least ensure that there is an auto-switch off mechanism to prevent it from flooding. Purchasing a dehumidifier that comes on wheels is extremely helpful for old people whom could otherwise struggle to move it around, a sensor for frost that will disconnect the machine when the temperature hits freezing is a further excellent precaution to take if it shall be placed in a basement location. Ensuring that your dehumidifer has low levels of noise pre-purchase will be an important thing to make sure of especially if it will be made use of in a living/sleeping area, also having one that includes an air filter may be prefferable for allergy sufferers.

Considering all of the above factors and purchasing an air dehumidifier (ebac dehumidifiers are recommended) should enable you to maintain suitable levels of humidity that won’t interfere with you sleep patterns and ensure you are comfortable at night.

 

New imaging research in the June 24 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience helps explain why sleep deprivation affects some people more than others. After staying awake all night, those who are genetically vulnerable to sleep loss showed reduced brain activity, while those who are genetically resilient showed expanded brain activity, the study found. The findings help explain individual differences in the ability to compensate for lack of sleep.

“The extent to which individuals are affected by sleep deprivation varies, with some crashing out and others holding up well after a night without sleep,” said Michael Chee, MBBS, at the Duke National University of Singapore Graduate Medical School, an expert on sleep deprivation who was not affiliated with the study. However, studying how the brain produces these behavioral differences is difficult: researchers usually do not know whether their study participants will be vulnerable to sleep deprivation until after a study is complete. Previous studies have shown conflicting results, perhaps because the study subjects differed widely in vulnerability to sleep deprivation.

In the current study, the researchers, led by Pierre Maquet, MD, at the University of Lìege in Belgium and Derk-Jan Dijk, PhD, at the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom, avoided this problem by selecting study participants based on their genes. Previous research showed that the PERIOD3 (PER3) gene predicts how people will respond to sleep deprivation. People carry either long or short variants of the gene. Those with the short PER3 variant are resilient to sleep loss - they perform well on cognitive tasks after sleep deprivation. However, those with the long PER3 variant are vulnerable - they show deficits in cognitive performance after sleep deprivation. Now the new study explains why.

The authors imaged study participants while they did a working memory task that requires attention and cognitive control - also called executive function. The researchers imaged each participant four times: the night before and the morning after a good night’s sleep, and the night before and morning after a sleepless night.

They found that the resilient, short gene variant group compensated for sleep loss by “recruiting” extra brain structures. In addition to brain structures normally activated by the cognitive task, these participants showed increased activity in other frontal, temporal, and subcortical brain structures after a sleepless night.

In contrast, after a sleepless night, vulnerable participants, the long PER3 group, showed reduced activity in brain structures normally activated by the task. These participants also showed reduced brain activity in one brain structure - the right posterior inferior frontal gyrus - after a normal waking day. These data are consistent with previous research suggesting that people with the long gene variant perform better on executive tasks earlier, but not later, in the day.

“Our study uncovers some of the networks underlying individual differences in sleep loss vulnerability and shows for the first time how genetic differences in brain activity associate with cognitive performance and fatigue,” said study author Maquet. “The data also provide a basis for the development of measures to counteract individual cognitive deficits associated with sleep loss,” he said.

“This study and others like it could help in identifying those who may be at risk for performance decline in jobs where sleep deprivation is an integral feature, for example- all-night health care staff, senior decision makers, commercial aircraft pilots, and truck drivers. Such knowledge might also guide the development of more effective, possibly personalized countermeasures for at-risk people,” said Chee, the expert unaffiliated with the study.

The Belgian Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique, Queen Elizabeth Medical Foundation, University of Lìege, Interuniversity Attraction Pole - Phase V, Wellcome Trust, and Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council supported the research.

The Journal of Neuroscience is published by the Society for Neuroscience, an organization of more than 38,000 basic scientists and clinicians who study the brain and nervous system.

Source:
Todd Bentsen
Society for Neuroscience