Sleep deprivation can cause euphoria: why it happens
Dopamine activity in the prefrontal cortex is probably responsible for the unusual antidepressant effects of acute sleep deprivation.Poor sleep is often associated with poor physical and mental health. However, scientists are aware of a strange phenomenon in which acute sleep deprivation produces an unusual effect. Within a short time after just one sleepless night, depressed patients can sometimes experience an elevated mood. Even healthy people can experience this strange, intoxicating feeling after staying up all night and awake the next day.
A team of researchers from Northwestern University studied this strange physiological phenomenon. To do so, they designed a unique experiment. Scientists kept the mice awake for long periods of time, but without subjecting them to excessive stress.
It turned out that after 12 hours of insomnia, the animals became hyperactive, including sexually. These traits disappeared after a few hours, but further tests showed clear antidepressant effects of the sleepless night. These lasted for up to three days.
Further research showed that three specific brain regions are responsible for behavioral changes in mice: the prefrontal cortex, the contiguous nucleus, and the hypothalamus. Specifically, dopamine neurons in the prefrontal cortex were responsible for antidepressant effects.
The researchers also found that sleep deprivation induces a certain degree of synaptic plasticity in the prefrontal cortex. And it was this mechanism that caused the antidepressant effect in the mice.
Why exactly acute sleep deprivation causes this effect remains a mystery. The authors of the study suggest that this mechanism has evolutionary utility.
The study authors emphasize that their results do not encourage depressed people to stay up all night to boost their mood.
"This effect is short-lived, and we know how important it is to get a good night's sleep. I would say you're better off going to the gym or going for a nice walk," Eugenia Kozorovitskaya of Northwestern University and author of the study.
The results of the study are published in the journal Neuron.