Sleepy Children

Sleep ► What time do you sleep last night? ► If you don ’ t have enough time to sleep, how do you feel?

Why do we need sleep? ► energy conservation ► predator avoidance ► body restoration ► memory consolidation Q: what else?

Topic ► Today ’ s topic is about sleep pathways and teenagers ’ sleep disorder, later we will talk some sleep diseases which are familiar to publics, such as insomnia, narcolepsy, sleep apnea.

Why students sleepy in the morning? ► The news showed that colleague students are sleepy in the morning classes. ► Some experts think it is a problem that teenagers ’ sleep time different from the adults. ► There are more possible reasons, like hard studying, late sleep, no breakfast ……

How much sleep time do we need?

Sleep Pathways ► How do we get into sleep? Scientists find that it depends on the neurotransmitters released. The main reaction neurotransmitters are serotonin and melatonin. ► serotonin melatonin

Serotonin ► It is a kind of neurotransmitters which made by the place called Raphe Nudeus( 縫核 ). ► When serotonin increase, the person can be feel more comfortable, emotion insensitive, and change the body temperature. ► Serotonin levels are highest in the brain stem when you are awake and active, and almost completely absent when we enter REM sleep, the deepest stage of sleep.

melatonin ► During sleep, the body's level of melatonin rises sharply. ► Its synthesis in the pineal gland, which is powered by serotonin. ► While light increases the production of serotonin, darkness spurs on the synthesis of melatonin.

How to increasing Serotonin ► The text also claims that repetitive motions like chewing gum or knitting can help increase serotonin. Exercising and exposure to bright light also increase serotonin production, particularly during the winter.

Question ► What would you do when you are sleepy but can not sleep? ► The methods above really work?

REM ► REM is the abbreviation of Rapid eye movement ► The first step when get into sleep ► Can consolidate the memory, so a student needs sufficient sleep to produce long-term memory

Non-REM ► The deeper sleep step ► In this situation, the brain wave tend to be slower ► Make the protein body needed ► General speaking, In the REM and Non-REM condition the skeletal muscle has no function

Sleep Cycle ► SCN 視丘下神經核 (suprachiasmatic nucleus) plays an important role ► The time cycle depend on the three proteins ’ combination and degradation ► Rat experiment

Question ► Do you have some brilliant idea after knowing the secret of sleep?

Sleep diseases ► insomnia( 失眠症 ) ► narcolepsy( 猝睡症 ) ► sleep apnea( 打鼾 )

Insomnia ► Transient insomnia may be caused by another disorder, by changes in the sleep environment, by the timing of sleep, severe depression, or by stress. ► Chronic insomnia longer than a month even can be a primary disorder, caused by muscular fatigue, hallucinations, and/or mental fatigue. ► The patients of chronic insomnia often show increased alertness. ► The therapies mainly categorize to Non- pharmacological and pharmacological. The former is better.

Narcolepsy ► A syndrome has multiple symptoms related with the gene descending ► the symptoms contain excessive daytime sleepiness, cataplexy, regular sleep paralysis, and sleep disturbance ► No complete therapy

Sleep Apnea ► Normal trouble ► Caused by the extra tissue in the air tube ► Result oxygen level decrease during the sleep ► Therapies: losing weight, stopping smoking, pharmacological treatment or just having a surgery to widen the airway by removing some tissue

Does gene relate to the sleep? ► The answer is yes ► The gene DEC2 is a transcript factor, related to the sleep cycle ► The mutated gene hDEC2 let people average sleep time decrease from 8.06 to 6.25 in the experiment of a case

Something else … ► Sleep cycle is also related to adenosine, and may pathways not clear ► There are lots of questions needed we to resolve

Question ► After knowing the knowledge about sleep, what the reasons do you think that students are sleepy in the morning? ► We can select what kinds of methods to increase the sleep quality?

► Thank for your attention