Lack of sleep still learns well

American researchers discovered a protein that helps the brain develop in the early stages of life that can combat lack of clarity due to lack of sleep, according to Top News.

Paul Shaw, associate professor of neurobiology at the University of Washington (USA) and team leader, said: 'The interesting thing is NOTCH , a protein that plays a key role in a child's development. people, also have important functions in adult brains' .

Fruit flies still contain interesting mysteries - Photo : Reuters

' We found that if NOTCH activity is enhanced in the brains of sleep-deprived fruit flies, they remain alert and continue to learn. They act as if they had a good night's sleep , 'Mr. Shaw explained.

Associate Professor Shaw and colleagues examined the fruit flies' ability to learn by pairing a negative stimulus (quinine, which flies normally avoid) with a positive stimulus (light that flies often search instinctively. When there is an opportunity to crawl into a dark pipe or a quinine-light pipe, flies can learn to control their desire to choose light. Like humans, flies have a constant decline in cognitive activity in a typical wake day. The prolonged sleep disruption caused the learning ability of the fly to decrease.

Professor Shaw became interested in NOTCH protein when his team found that lack of sleep in flies increased activity in a gene capable of inhibiting NOTCH proteins. They also found a similar situation in people with insomnia. They continued to study and found that when the inhibitor was ' crippled ' and that the NOTCH protein activity was enhanced, flies could continue to learn even when they lacked sleep.

The study of Mr. Shaw and his colleagues has been published in the journal Current Biology.