Sleep to Protect Your Brain

Lose sleep and you may lose gray matter — that’s the takeaway from a new study out of Uppsala University, Sweden. In a study conducted on healthy young men, researchers found that one night of sleep deprivation increases morning blood concentrations of NSE and S-100B, molecules typically found in the brain, which may indicate that a lack of sleep might be conducive to a loss of brain tissue. “These brain molecules typically rise in blood under conditions of brain damage. Thus, our results indicate that a lack of sleep may promote neurodegenerative processes,” says Christian Benedict, who lead the study. Click here to read the full article.