Sleepy Genes

Sleep. We all do it. We all need it. As college students, we learn very quickly that sleep is of the essence, when we can get it. But is it really?

 

A study has recently been published in ScienceDaily contributing to this very question. Researchers from Rockefeller University have identified a new gene called insomniac that seems to have a correlation with regulatory sleeping habits in a new, methodical way than we have previously known. Mutations in this insomniac gene were first seen in the laboratory using infrared beams to detect when the flies fell to sleep. This gene caused a significant decrease in the amount of sleep that flies averagely displayed. It also seemed to affect to periods of time they were about to stay asleep, making the number of times they wake up more frequent and disturbed. Lastly, and most interestingly, this newly founded gene seems to be a process not of the well-known circadian cycle, but of bodily homeostatic mechanisms. The main difference being that usual sleep-involved processes occur through the circadian cycle, which regulates sleeping between day and night. Homeostatic mechanisms occur at every hour since their job consists mainly on keeping the body at a healthy balance.

 

However, now to their next discovery, which makes one stop and contemplate just how important sleep is to organisms. At first in their study, they discovered that the insomniac gene decreased the fruit flies’ lifespan by approximately two-thirds. This, you’d figure would be a result of the lack of peaceful, undisturbed sleep that this gene inflicts upon them. However, when removing the insomniac gene from the neurons of the flies, this proved differently. The poor sleep they were able to get still remained, but the lifespan went back to its original length. This breakthrough suggests that sleep may not have to affect the lifespan of an individual. Thus, whichever professors and parents and advisors say we aren’t getting enough sleep may actually be wrong after all. With this knowledge, sleep may possibly not affect overall health at all. We may not be fruit flies, but every animal sleeps, so how far off could the mark really be?