Sleep is a very sensitive subject, because too many of us are not getting enough of it. Despite how hard we try, there seems to not be enough hours in the day to get everything done. Sometimes the work-load gets so bad that we have to pull all-nighters.
After not sleeping for a night, someone may find themselves alert and awake. This seems to be a very bizarre side effect of not resting. Nora Volkow, MD led a study, which set out to understand this effect. What she and her team of researchers found was that after a night of no sleep, there is an increase of dopamine in the brain, which helps to keep sleep-deprived subject awake. The study had test subjects spend a night sleeping or awake, and then took Positron Emission Topography (PET) scans of their brains.
While this data may seem like an excuse to stay up all night studying, the decreased ability to perform cognition tasks that comes with the dopamine increase is a good reason to make sure you get your 8 hours (or 9.25 if you are in Psych 1101).
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Dopamine Molecule (source: Wikimedia.org)

















