A study published in the Journal of Neuroscience found that one night of sleep deprivation can increase brain aging by a couple of years. Importantly, the study showed that the changes are reversible after a good night’s sleep, said an international team of researchers from RWTH Aachen University in Germany.
They also found no significant change in brain age even after partial sleep deprivation.
Eva-Maria Elmenhorst from the university said, “Absolute sleep deprivation changes brain morphology in young participants in an aging-like direction and these changes can be reversed by recovery sleep.”
“Our study provides new evidence to explain the brain-wide effects of sleep deprivation on aging,” Elmenhorst said.
Lack of sleep affects the human brain in a big way on many levels. Age-related changes in several characteristics of sleep indicate that decreased sleep quality is a frequent feature of aging.
Conversely, sleep disruption can accelerate the aging process, yet it is not known what would happen to the brain’s age status if we could manipulate sleep status.
To understand, the team employed a brain aging approach to investigate whether sleep deprivation would lead to age-related changes in the brain.
They included MRI data from 134 healthy volunteers between the ages of 19 and 39.
In the case of total sleep deprivation (prolonged periods longer than 24 hours of wakefulness), they consistently observed that total sleep deprivation increased brain aging by a couple of years.
Interestingly, after one night of recovery sleep, brain age was no different from baseline, the team explained.
In addition, the study found that brain age decreased with either acute (3-hour time-to-bed for 1 night) or chronic partial sleep restriction (5-hour time-to-bed for 5 consecutive nights) There was no significant change.