News & Noteworthy
Junior hospital doctor's working hours
Channel 4's Matchlight program (measures by Chris Idzikowski, ESC, SAAS).
Zeo Sleep Coach out of business?
It looks like the company that devised a really nice sleep measuring / sleep coaching device has gone out of business.
Global wakefulness leads to local sleep
Areas of the brain involved in some types of learning are re-activated during sleep. This Sleep journal paper reports that extended practice for an extended period of wakefulness (more than 24 hours) can lead to 'local sleep' whilst still awake.
Forensic Sleep Medicine: The UK experience
Talk given in Durban, SA at the South African Sleep Medicine Congress. A survey of the work done at the sleep centres (cases include murder, assault, rape, sexual assault, death by dangerous driving, fraud, etc).
Zeo (wireless headband) assessed
Conclusions (from abstract) Data suggest that the Zeo system produces acceptable sleep scoring for stage REM, light and deep sleep, with a specific weakness in correctly detecting waking periods.
Concomitant BDNF and sleep slow wave changes indicate ketamine-induced plasticity in major depressive disorder.
Links "slow wave sleep", NMDA ... glutamate depression
Sleep and depression, a two-way street
Insomnia predicts depression, depression predicts insomnia (Also talk to the Lothian Bipolar Group 11th Oct 2012, Edinburgh)
Sleep and sports performance
RSM, London - 14th November 2012
Sleep duration and body mass index in twins: a gene-environment interaction.
Twin study(1,088 pairs, 604 monozygotic, 484 dizygotic) indicates that individuals genetically susceptible to obesity are more likely to become obese if they are short sleepers (<7 hours). Longer, but genetically susceptible, were less likely to put on weight.
An investigation of the relationship between subjective sleep quality, loneliness and mood in an Australian sample: Can daily routine explain the links?
"This study provides an important independent replication of the association between poor sleep and loneliness. However, the mechanism underlying this link remains unclear. A theoretically plausible mechanism for this link, lifestyle regularity, does not explain the relationship between loneliness and poor sleep. The nexus between loneliness and poor sleep is unlikely to be broken by altering the social rhythm of patients who present with poor sleep and loneliness."
REM Sleep Instability – A New Pathway for Insomnia?
Objective studies consistently show that insomniacs sleep more than they perceive. Prof Riemann & collaborators show however that there is a difference between insomniacs and good sleepers in the time spent awake and the number of arousals in REM sleep.
Hypnotics' association with mortality or cancer: a matched cohort study.
Kripke has long noted the correlation between short and long sleep and mortality, AND the association between sleeping pill usage and mortality. The newest study shows how few sleeping pills/year are necessary for this association to become significant. The studies do not show causality - it may be the case that for some people impaired sleep is the first sign of things going wrong with the body ...
Sleep education for paradoxical insomnia.
Sleep education holds promise for some paradoxical insomnia patients.
