How old is the brain after a sleepless night?

A new study published last month in the Journal of Neuroscience reveals how much the brain could age after a single sleepless night, an average of one to two years. The research included data from 134 participants divided into four groups: total sleep deprivation (no sleep one night), partial sleep deprivation (three hours in bed one night), chronic sleep deprivation (five hours in bed every night for five days) and a control group (eight hours in bed each night). Each volunteer underwent an MRI after each night. This information allowed the scientists to compare how the brains looked before and after sleep deprivation, and after complete rest. To determine the apparent ages of the participants’ brains, the researchers used a machine learning algorithm called brainageR, which was trained on MRIs of more than 3,000 people, so it can predict what the healthy brain organ looks like at a given age. determined. But those extra years or years from not sleeping disappeared after a good night’s sleep.