The brain gets deep sleep to heal life -threatening injuries

The brain gets deep sleep to heal life -threatening injuries

according to a Heart attack 1 When people were involved. This profound sleep helps to recover by the Inflammation in the heart reduced, the study.

The results published today in the journal Nature could be the Treatment of people after a heart attack Says Mitutor Cameron McAlpine from the Icahn School of Medicine on Mount Sinai in New York City that examines the immune function in the cardiovascular and nervous system. "Sufficient sleep and calm after a heart attack are important for the long -term healing of the heart," he emphasizes.

The effects of the study go via Heart attacks , says Rachel Rowe, a specialist in sleep and inflammation at the University of Colorado Boulder. "With every kind of injury, the body's natural reaction is to promote sleep so that it can heal," she explains.

The heart needs sleep

Scientists have known for a long time that sleep and cardiovascular health are associated . For example, people with bad sleep have a higher risk of developing high blood pressure than good sleepers. Nevertheless, it was examined, How cardiovascular diseases affect sleep and it has been less researched.

To learn more, the authors induced heart attacks in mice and examined their brain waves. The researchers found that these mice were much more time in Spent sleep waves , a phase of deep sleep that is connected to healing processes, as mice without heart attack.

Next, the authors wanted to understand what caused this effect. An obvious focus point was The brain structures that control sleep , notes McAlpine. After a heart attack, immune cells trigger a massive increase in inflammation in the heart, and the researchers wanted to know whether similar immune changes also took place in the brain.

The team found that after a heart attack, immune cells called monozytes entered the brain of the mice. These cells produced large quantities of a Proteins called tumor necrosis factor (TNF), which plays an important role in the regulation of inflammation and also promotes sleep.

In order to confirm that these cells were connected to the increased sleep, the researchers prevented monocytes from accumulating in the rodents' brains. As a result, "the mice no longer had this increase in slow sleep after their heart attack," explains Mcalpine, which supports the theory that the influx of monocytes in the brain contributes to the increase in sleep after the heart attack. Similar experiments confirmed the role of TNF as a messenger for sleep -inducing brain cells.

sleep as a way to recovery

In order to understand the purpose of additional sleep, the researchers repeatedly interrupted the slow sleep in mice that had suffered a heart attack. The team found that these mice had more inflammation in the brain and in the heart and had a much worse forecast than mice that were allowed to sleep undisturbed after the heart attack.

The authors also examined people who at acute coronary syndromes , a term for diseases, including heart attack that was suddenly reduced Heart muscle can be caused. People who reported in the weeks after such a event of poor sleep had a higher risk of developing heart attacks and other serious cardiovascular problems in the next two years than those that slept well.

"Doctors have to inform the patients about the importance of a good night's sleep" after a heart attack, says Rowe. This should also be taken into account in the hospital where tests and procedures should ideally be carried out during the day to minimize sleep interruptions.

It adds that the results underline the bidirectional relationship between sleep and the immune system. "If your grandmother says: 'If you don't get enough sleep, you get sick', then there is a lot of truth in it."

1. Huynh, P. et al. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08100-W (2024).

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