Dopamine fends off zzzzz’s
The chemical keeps sleep-deprived people going
A reward chemical in the brain is a real eye-opener.
Dopamine, a feel-good brain chemical, helps keep sleep-deprived people awake, researchers from the National Institute on Drug Abuse show in the August 20 Journal of Neuroscience. Dopamine is also required for activity of a drug that treats narcolepsy, Japanese and Chinese scientists report in the same issue of the journal.
“Dopamine has been a forgotten neurotransmitter for sleep
regulation,” says Emmanuel Mignot, a sleep researcher and Howard Hughes Medical
Institute investigator at StanfordUniversity. Increasing
evidence is pointing toward dopamine as an important ingredient in the brain’s
recipe for promoting wakefulness.
The new findings suggest dopamine may naturally increase
when a person is sleep-deprived, as a way to counteract a revved-up drive to
sleep, says David Dinges of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
Dinges was not involved in the two new studies, but he has studied the effect
of sleep deprivation on people.