How does sleep affect our feeling of pain?



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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – According to a new study, lack of sleep overnight can make people more sensitive to pain.

Sleep deprivation activates nerve cells in an area of ​​gray matter that detects pain and stops the cells that inhibit it, according to the study.

The researchers point out that their findings are the first interpretation based on the brain and suggest paying more attention to convenience, given their importance for the recovery of patients in hospitals.

"Sleep deprivation increases our sensitivity to pain," said Dr. Matthew Walker, a sleep specialist at the University of California at Berkeley. "Sleep should be the same," said Dr. Matthew Walker, a sleep specialist at the University of California at Berkeley. It is of great importance for patient care, especially in hospital services. "

During the study, researchers led by Walker and his student, Adam Krause, conducted experiments on over 20 healthy adult participants, examined their brains by magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and found that the neural mechanisms that capture, evaluate and activate natural pain signals, sufficient sleep.

The increased sensitivity of the pain in the somatosensory cortex was not surprising, but what shocked the team was the deterioration of the reaction in the "recombinant nucleus", the reward zone that triggers chemical dopamine, which provides a "good feeling" to reduce the pain.

"Sleep loss not only inflates the areas of pain detection in the brain, but also prevents natural sedation centers," said Dr. Walker.

In order to better test the links between sleep pain and the most common everyday life scenarios, researchers surveyed more than 230 adults of all ages in the Mechanical Turk online market, where they had to report their hours. night sleep and their daily pain levels. Some days

The results showed that even minor changes in sleep and waking patterns were badociated with changes in pain sensitivity.

"The results clearly show that very slight changes in nocturnal sleep have an obvious impact on the burden of pain the next day," he said.

After a sleepless night, brain imaging showed a marked increase in activity in the somatosensory cortex and a deactivation of the recombinant nucleus and isolated cortex, indicating a dysfunction of the neural mechanisms that manage the physiological responses to pain stimuli.

"Sleep is a natural habitat that can help relieve and reduce pain," said Dr. Walker. "Ironically, the environment in which people suffer is the worst place to sleep, these are the hospitals, the results of the study are intended to encourage them to create more facilities." Appropriate internal patients " .

Source: Daily Mail

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