Dec. 16, 2009 There is hope for those who miss one night too
many or whose children keep them up at night. The unwelcome
effects of a bad night's sleep -- forgetfulness, impaired mental
performance -- can be dealt with by reducing the concentration
of an enzyme in the brain. These are the conclusions of research
published by Rubicon-grant winner Robbert Havekes and colleagues
in the 22 October issue of Nature. Millions of people are
regularly plagued by sleep deprivation. This can lead to both
short-term and long-term problems with memory and learning
capacity. How sleep deprivation causes these kinds of problems
was largely unknown up to now. Havekes and his colleagues
discovered that sleep deprivation in mice undermines the
function of a specific molecular mechanism in the hippocampus,
the area of the brain responsible for consolidating new
memories. The researchers kept mice awake for five hours. They
found increased levels and activity of the enzyme PDE4 and lower
levels of the molecule cAMP in these mice