New Scientist (January 25, 2012) indicated that schizophrenia could be a profound form of jet lag in which the brain’s central clock runs out of kilter with peripheral clocks in the rest of the body. Linda Geddes writes that a genetic mutation triggers schizophrenia-like symptoms in mice also appears to disrupt their circadian rhythm or body clock. She cites the research of Russell Foster at the University of Oxford who has studied the link between sleep disturbances and mental illness. When mice were kept under a schedule of 12 hours of light followed by 12 hours of darkness, they were active when you would normally expect mice to be sleeping, suggesting that their circadian rhythms were disrupted. Foster's team found alterations in the time of day hormones were released from the adrenal glands compared with normal mice. "There is a defect in the way that the master clock is talking to peripheral clocks," says Foster. "It's rather like jet lag. All of the biology is in different phases." Although he hasn't yet proved that sleep disruptions directly causes schizophrenia, Foster believes that if sleep is disrupted this is more likely to push susceptible individuals towards mental illness.
New Scientist reader Thomas Smith (February 15, 2012) raised the worrying corollary that maybe jet lag has more profound effects on mental functioning than just making airline passengers tired. Smith wrote that the fact that many important decisions are made by people who have just stepped off an intercontinental flight is enough reason for concern. The possibility that jet lag impairs judgement in other ways deserves serious investigation, he wrote.
Another reader, Cliff Hardcastle (New Scientist, March 3, 2012) said he first noticed a similar problem with jet lag after a 16-hour business flight in 1974. He took an electronic game to pass the time during the flight. It had ten levels of difficulty and he could usually complete up to level 8. Two hours into the flight, when he played the electronic game, he couldn’t even complete level 2. He thought it was due to the reduced oxygen levels in the cabin of the plane which affected his ability to think clearly on a number of tasks. When he arrived at his destination, it took him more than two days to return to his normal standard of electronic game competency.
Maybe the readers Smith and Hardcastle have a point. What are the effects of jet lag on mental competency and decision making?
Update comprehension of sleep origin and brain housekeeping...
ReplyDeleteJet Lag Disrupts Pregnancies in Mice
A. Jet Lag Disrupts Pregnancies in Mice
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/05/scienceshot-jet-lag-disrupts-pre.html?ref=em
B. Repeated jet lag disrupts brain housekeeping clean-up time
http://universe-life.com/2011/12/30/sleep-how-much-and-why/
C.
Biorhythms Schmiorythms. Circadian Schmircadian sleep origin?
Life sleeps because RNAs genesized, evolved from inanimate nucleotides into self-replicating nucleotides, organisms, of course long before metabolism evolved. They were then active ONLY during sunlight hours. Thus sleep is inherent for RNAs, even though, being ORGANISMS, they later adapted to when/extent sleep times are feasible just as we adapt to jetlag or night work time.
D.
Sleep, How Much And What For
http://universe-life.com/2011/08/31/origins-in-cells-clusters-intercell-cleanup/
Multi-celled organisms evolved from mono-celled organisms.
Historically in the mono-cells communities (“cultures”) the inter-cell waste maintenance processes evolved and proceeded mostly for and when the in-cell resident organisms, the genes and genomes, were inactive-“asleep”.
The scope-extent of vitally required intercell cleanup is very high in a newborn, intensely physiologically developing, multi-celled organism. It decreases but continues to be high as the organism develops to maturity.
In mature organisms the required extent of intercell cleanup is balanced-uniform, with some variations due to circumstance and with spurts in cases of physiological problems.
This, in my opinion, is the drive of sleep, how much and what for.
Dov Henis (comments from 22nd century)
http://universe-life.com/