Neurobiologists at Northwestern University have found that spending one sleepless night can quickly treat depression.
In their study, the researchers conducted experiments on a number of mice in which they monitored their behaviors and brain activity after mild and severe sleep deprivation, to find that not only was the release of dopamine increased during the period of acute sleep loss, but synaptic plasticity was also enhanced, which led to the brain to maintain a lively mood.
The Medical Express website reported that the study concluded that sleep deprivation may be an effective treatment for getting rid of feelings of depression.
In the same context, Professor Yevgenia Kozorovetsky, the lead researcher in the study titled ‘Dopamine pathways that mediate emotional state shifts after sleep loss’, says: “Chronic sleep loss has been well studied, and its harmful effects have been widely and uniformly documented, but Brief sleep loss – the equivalent of a student staying up all night before an exam – is less understood.”
“We found that lack of sleep leads to a powerful antidepressant effect and rewires the brain,” Kozorovetsky added, stressing that “a sleepless night can radically change the brain in less than a few hours.”
She continued: “We were interested in identifying specific areas of the brain responsible for behavioral changes, and we wanted to know whether it was a large broadcast signal that affected the entire brain or whether it was something more specialized.”