Danish sleep researchers at the University of Copenhagen and the Danish Institute for Health Services Research have examined the socio-economic consequences of the sleep disorder hypersomnia in one of the largest studies of its kind. The sleep disorder has far-reaching consequences for both the individual and society as a whole. ...

Caffeine consumption in children is often blamed for sleep problems and bedwetting. Information on childhood caffeine consumption is limited, and many parents may not know the amount or effects of their child's caffeine consumption. In a study published in The Journal of Pediatrics, researchers found that 75% of children surveyed consumed caffeine on a daily basis, and the more caffeine the children consume ...

We commonly think of sleep as a healing process that melts away the stresses of the day and prepares us to deal with new challenges. Research has also shown that sleep plays a crucial role in the development of memories. Now researchers believe that sleep deprivation may help prevent maladaptive memory formation after experiencing a disturbing event, and noted that these findings have obvious implications f ...

At ages 1 and 1-1/2, children who get most of their sleep at night (as opposed to during the day) do better in a variety of skill areas than children who don't sleep as much at night. That is the finding of a new longitudinal study conducted by researchers at the University of Montreal and the University of Minnesota. The research appears in the November/December 2010 issue of the journal Child Development. ...

As humans, we spend about a third of our lives asleep. So there must be a point to it, right? Scientists have found that sleep helps consolidate memories, fixing them in the brain so we can retrieve them later. Now, new research is showing that sleep also seems to reorganize memories, picking out the emotional details and reconfiguring the memories to help you produce new and creative ideas, according to th ...

Depression appears to be associated with a molecular-level disturbance in the body's 24-hour clock, new research suggests. Scientists examined genes that regulate circadian rhythm in people with and without a history of depression. As a group, those with a history of depression had a higher level of activity of the so-called Clock gene, which has a role in regulating circadian rhythm, than did people with n ...

It is one thing to learn a new piece of information, such as a new phone number or a new word, but quite another to get your brain to file it away so it is available when you need it. A new study published in the Journal of Neuroscience by researchers at the University of York and Harvard Medical School suggests that sleep may help to do both. The scientists found that sleep helps people to remember a newly ...

A study in the Nov. 1 issue of the journal SLEEP found that vulnerability to sleep deprivation is influenced by the interaction between waking social activity and individual personality traits. Results show that extraverts who were exposed to 12 hours of social interaction were more vulnerable to subsequent sleep deprivation than those who were exposed to an identical period of isolated activity. ...

Ever wonder why some people breeze along on four hours of sleep when others can barely function? It may be in our genes, according to new research and an accompanying editorial published in the October 26, 2010, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study looked at people who have a gene variant that is closely associated with narcolepsy, a sleep disorder t ...

Sleep disturbances increase the risk of work disability and may slow the return to work process. This is especially true in cases where work disability is due to mental disorders or musculoskeletal diseases. These results come from a recent study conducted by the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health in collaboration with the universities of Turku and London. The results were published in the journal, Sl ...