Sleep machine could bypass insomnia
Sleep remains one of the big mysteries in biology. All animals sleep, and people who are deprived of sleep suffer physically, emotionally and intellectually. But nobody knows how sleep restores the brain.
Now, Giulio Tononi, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, has discovered how to stimulate brain waves that characterize the deepest stage of sleep. The discovery could open a new window into the role of sleep in keeping humans healthy, happy and able to learn.
The brain function in question, called slow wave activity, is critical to the restoration of mood and the ability to learn, think and remember, Tononi says.
During slow wave activity, which occupies about 80 percent of sleeping hours, waves of electrical activity wash across the brain, roughly once a second, 1,000 times a night. In a paper being published this week in the Early Edition of the scientific journal PNAS, Tononi and colleagues, including Marcello Massimini, also of the UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, described the use of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to initiate slow waves in sleeping volunteers. The researchers recorded brain electrical activity with an electroencephalograph (EEG).
A TMS instrument sends a harmless magnetic signal through the scalp and skull and into the brain, where it activates electrical impulses. In response to each burst of magnetism, the subjects' brains immediately produced slow waves typical of deep sleep, Tononi says. "With a single pulse, we were able to induce a wave that looks identical to the waves the brain makes normally during sleep."
The researchers have learned to locate the TMS device above a specific part of the brain, where it causes slow waves that travel throughout the brain. "We don't know why, but this is a very good place to evoke big waves that clearly travel through every part of the brain," Tononi says.
Scientists' interest in slow waves stems from a growing appreciation of their role in sleep, Tononi says. "We have reasons to think the slow waves are not just something that happens, but that they may be important" in sleep's restorative powers. For example, a sleep-deprived person has larger and more numerous slow waves once asleep. And as sleep proceeds, Tononi adds, the slow waves weaken, which may signal that the need for sleep is partially satisfied.
Creating slow waves on demand could someday lead to treatments for insomnia, where slow waves may be reduced. Theoretically, it could also lead to a magnetically stimulated "power nap," which might confer the benefit of eight hours sleep in just a few hours.
Before that happens, however, Tononi must go further and prove that artificial slow waves have restorative benefits to the brain. Such an experiment would ask whether sleep with TMS leads to greater brain restoration than an equal amount of sleep without TMS.
Although an electronic power-napper sounds like a product whose time has come, Tononi is chasing a larger quarry: learning why sleep is necessary in the first place. If all animals sleep, he says, it must play a critical role in survival, but that role remains elusive.
Based on the fact that sleep seems to "consolidate" memories, many neuroscientists believe that sleeping lets us rehearse the day's events.
Tononi agrees that sleep improves memory, but he thinks this happens through a different process, one that involves a reduction in brain overload. During sleep, he suggests, the synapses (connections between nerve cells) that were formed by the day's learning can relax a little.
While awake, we "observe and learn much more than you think," he observes. "Tons of things are leaving traces, changing the synapses, mainly by making them stronger. It is wonderful that you can have all these synaptic traces in the brain, but they come at a price. Synapses require proteins, fats, space and energy. At the end of a waking day, you have all these traces of memories left behind.
"During the slow waves, all the connections, step by step, are becoming a little weaker," Tononi adds. "By morning, the total connection strength is back to the way it was the morning before. The trick is to downscale all the connections by the same percentage, so the ones that were stronger are still stronger. That way you don't lose the memory."
Without this type of weakening, he says, we "would not be able to learn new things" because our brains would lack sufficient available energy, space and nutrients.
Although the explanation is still a hypothesis, Tononi hopes that the ability to artificially stimulate slow waves will allow him and other researchers to test the notion that sleep restores the brain by damping connectivity between neurons.
Slow waves, he suspects, "Clear out the noise to make sure your brain does not become too much of an energy hog, a space hog. By morning, you have a brain that is energy efficient, space efficient and ready to learn again."
University of Wisconsin - Madison
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May 4, 2007
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Futuristic Sleep Machine Already Reality
May 9, 2007 by Paul Becker (not verified), 2 years 28 weeks ago
Comment: 23580
Those seeking improved sleep can switch on Sleep on Commandâ„¢ device designed to enforce Delta rhythm sleep and the recovery that best occurs during deep, slow-wave, Delta-stage sleep.
Stuart, FL, May 08, 2007 --(PR.com)-- A new sleep study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences could provide a mechanism for what a small Florida biotech firm has known for 5 years; that artificially created Delta rhythm magnetic signals enhance and prolong deep sleep.
click below for study abstract:
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0702495104v1
Friday's University of Wisconsin sleep study disclosed that "With a single pulse, we were able to induce a wave that looks identical to the waves the brain makes normally during sleep." The study shows that magnetic signals may produce exactly the same effects as weak electric signals used in a recent sleep study from the University of Lubeck, Germany.
click below for study abstract:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dop...
In November 2006 the University of Lubeck sleep study disclosed that slowly oscillating Delta rhythm electric stimulation applied via surface electrodes on the scalp induced an immediate increase in spectral power at the same slow wave (Delta) frequency band, increased endogenous cortical slow oscillations, and increased slow spindle activity in the frontal cortex, resulting in improved slow wave sleep and subsequently better memory consolidation.
Paul F. Becker, Product Developer and U.S. Patent holder, "Taken together, these two studies provide indisputable evidence that these types of pulsed signal technologies can provide relief to poor sleepers and confirms what nearly 2500 clients and I have known for up to 5 years."
Becker adds, "In 2002 I developed a Delta rhythm magnetic device and discovered that rhythmic signals at Delta range frequencies improved sleep via brainwave entrainment. Entrainment as it relates to brainwaves is driving or 'guiding' the brains predominant wave signature via externally applied beat frequency stimuli."
Others discovered brainwave entrainment decades ago using binaural beats (sound) and pulsating light, although it's hard to sleep with these systems due to obvious limitations. Until the U of Lubeck and U of Wisconsin studies, instantaneously improving sleep parameters via electric and magnetic stimuli had been unprecedented in the published literature.
Robert O. Becker MD (The Body Electric and Cross Currents) put animals into an anesthetized state using DC current, but doing so required relatively strong current flow directly into the brain. "In my visits with Bob Becker 3 and 4 years ago he felt I was on the correct path with my device. After 5 years of promoting my sleep system, it's very satisfying to see researchers finally verifying the work I've done with Delta rhythm, magnetic signaling to enhance deep sleep," says Paul Becker.
The sequenced frequency system called Sleep on Commandâ„¢ was first released to the public in May 2005 and provides clients with an extraordinary sleep experience. The Sleep on Commandâ„¢ trademark was filed in early 2006. An Alert Mode (low Beta wave) program was added in 2006 to aid students in studying, and to aid drivers in maintaining alertness and reducing physical and mental fatigue on long trips. It works equally well in desk job environments.
Unlike the U of WI study, whose researchers describe a very specific focal point of stimulation in the brain, Becker found he could place an inductor coil anywhere on the body, the sole of the foot for instance, and produce similar sleep effects. Becker explains, "The neurological system is the most sensitive and efficient antennae ever created and carries that electronic signal to the brain."
Sleep on Commandâ„¢ under the mattress puts the head and torso directly inside of the sphere of influence of a very weak magnetic field and results in a far greater range of effects than when applied directly to the head. Sleep on Commandâ„¢ enhances both mental and physical performance via a number of mechanisms, but most are due chiefly to deeper, sounder sleep.
"Regardless of how or why the ergogenic effects occur, the largest blessing by far is simply knowing my clients are going to go to bed at night (or whatever time of day) and enjoying an excellent sleep session nearly every time," Becker says.
While the U of WI study, BBC and other subsequent news articles speak of 'insomnia therapy', 'slow wave on demand', 'sleep machines' and 'magnetic power naps' being ideas for the future, Becker is quick to point out that, "Our low cost sleep technology has been available commercially since 2002 and the User Manual has contained directions for 'Power-Nap' since day one. Should anyone doubt the 'quality' of magnetically enhanced sleep vs. natural sleep they simply need to study our sleep system or try it themselves to put that reservation to bed once and for all. It's the best sleep our clients have ever had, night, after night, after night."
About EarthPulse Technologies:
EarthPulse Technologies, LLC is a privately held biotechnology and life sciences company specializing in the field of natural sleep and performance enhancement. The Sleep on Commandâ„¢ system promotes deep sleep and enhanced mental and physical performance. Clients range from 16 year old top ranked Girls Junior Tennis players to men and woman well into their 80's, from professional golfers and UFC champions to military Special Forces. The company develops and manufactures in Bangalore, India and has thousands of satisfied clients in 16 countries. For more information please visit:
http://www.earthpulsetechnologies.com
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