Scientists find the sleep switch inside our brains

Researchers have discovered the mechanism that causes the brain to switch from being awake to sleeping, according to a study from Washington State University. The analysis is expected to help scientists focus on finding ways to develop new sleep aids and even treatments for strokes and brain injuries.


“We know that brain activity is linked to sleep, but we’ve never known how,” said James Krueger, WSU neuroscientist and lead author of a paper in the latest edition of the Journal of Applied Physiology. ”This gives us a mechanism to link brain activity to sleep. This has not been done before.”

In an interview with Postmedia News, Krueger said the way we sleep goes against what science believed previously. ”Our work also emphasizes that sleep begins as a local process driven by cell activity.” Krueger said the view is in contrast to the current sleep research that views sleep as being imposed upon the brain by sleep regulatory circuits.

“The problem with that view is that despite millions of cases of stroke (brain damage) or intentional lesions to those circuits, a sleepless human or animal has yet to be described (with exception of patients in a coma, which is neither a wake nor sleep state),” he said.

The researchers documented how ATP (adenosine triphosphate), the fundamental energy currency of cells, is released by active brain cells to start the molecular events leading to sleep. The ATP then binds to a receptor responsible for cell processing and the release of cytokines, small signalling proteins involved in sleep regulation.

Read more: Montreal Gazette